PAYING TO HOUSE THE HOMELESS TAKING A BIGGER CHUNK OF THE D.C. PIE

When darkness falls over the District, some single homeless men and women seek shelter in unlikely places. On a recent night, a total of 144 of them slept in the District Building, the Reeves Municipal Center and Robert F. Kennedy Stadium because the city's permanent shelters were filled.

Such accommodations reflect what critics say has been a piecemeal and reactive approach to homelessness, which city officials readily characterize as one of the government's biggest social issues and a major money guzzler.

Now, the Department of Human Services, which administers the program, is under mounting pressure from city officials, the courts and advocates for the homeless to overhaul the shelter system, in which costs to the city increased from $9.2 million in fiscal 1985 to $27 million in fiscal 1988.

Human services officials say they have a three-year comprehensive plan to move the homeless toward self-sufficiency. But despite the clamor for action, the plan remains a secret and the city is groping for solutions as deadlines for significant changes approach.

Consider that:

Barry has ordered human services to stop using the Capitol City Inn, which houses 198 families and is the city's largest hotel shelter, by April 30. At the same time, a shortage of affordable permanent housing has made emptying shelters a lopsided proposition. In December, for example, 36 families left the system and 87 new families came in.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Harriett R. Taylor has ordered the city to increase the quantity and quality of city shelters for homeless men and women. The judge concluded that two city-operated shelters for men had been "virtual hell holes" where the homeless faced assaults, crowding and unsanitary conditions, including overflowing toilets that soaked men sleeping on the floor with urine. The city estimates that the judge's order will cost an additional $2.5 million for the remainder of the fiscal year.

In March, the city is supposed to be in compliance with a new law that limits homeless families to a 15-day hotel stay and six months in transitional housing. The city does not have the necessary housing in place and a coalition of housing advocates are poised to challenge the city in court if or when the city violates the law.

Human services Director Peter G. Parham says the pressure to change the system has put him in the position of trying to build a railroad while running it. Although Parham has said publicly that he plans to shift the focus of finding housing for the homeless to the city's housing department, reduce the size of shelters and limit the number of meals served in the shelters, he declines to discuss details of a proposed comprehensive plan for the homeless.

"The things I have in place are very delicately balanced," Parham said. "When I feel confident that everything is all locked in, I'll gladly tell the citizens. I'm putting the pieces together."

In recent years, the homeless population seeking assistance from the District government mushroomed. In 1984, the District provided services to 541 homeless families, the fastest growing homeless population here and in the country. Now, the District shelters 541 homeless families a day and housed 1,282 families in fiscal 1988.

The District is one of a handful of cities required by law to provide services to the homeless. Four years ago, D.C. voters overwhelmingly adopted a measure called Initiative 17, which guarantees adequate overnight shelter to anyone who needs it. Some city officials now blame that law for the increase in spending on homeless.

Sue Marshall, the mayor's coordinator for homelessness, noted that no one anticipated a sharp rise in the number of homeless families when the law went into effect. Marshall and others emphasized that the city, in an effort to make people independent of the system, exceeded Initiative 17 requirements by providing meals, transportation and human support services.

Once the door to an array of services to the homeless was opened, advocacy groups stuck a foot in by filing lawsuits whenever they thought the city was retreating from its Initiative 17 obligations.

"The District has done a miserable job under Initiative 17," said Maria Foscarinis, an attorney for the National Coalition for the Homeless. "If you are serious about addressing homelessness, you need to do more than just provide emergency shelter. It is not a question of how much money you spend. For the District to come up with a plan to create affordable housing would be a solution."

Parham emphasized that responding to the homeless is more complex than finding housing. He said many of the homeless need intensive social services before they can become self-sufficient.

A District government profile of the city's shelter population shows that from 30 percent to 50 percent display symptoms of mental illness and 54 percent of the heads of households exhibit distress levels that warrant intervention.

Nevertheless, some city officials are convinced that there is a limit to what the city should do. They favor amending Initiative 17 to reduce the city's financial obligation to homelessness. D.C. Council member Nadine P. Winter (D-Ward 6) has proposed limiting some shelter services to people who have lived in the city for six months.

"Because we must, under the law, shelter and serve all persons "in need," the social service system is, in effect, held hostage by homelessness," Mayor Marion Barry said recently of the financial burden placed on the city. "There is no way to cap the numbers or the costs and the requisite program of services for these persons is virtually unpredictable."

Others insist that Initiative 17, which places no limit on how much the city should spend on homelessness, has backed the city into a corner.

"If we don't do something, it is going to eat us alive," one city official said of the city's shelter system. "We've got a series of lawsuits that we can't win and a series of problems that we can't manage."

Council member H.R. Crawford (D-Ward 7), who also supports the idea of amending Initiative 17, has criticized the city for having nearly 3,000 vacant public housing units when shelters exceed their capacity.

During a recent D.C. Council budget hearing, Crawford was told that the city spent $14.2 million since 1987 to shelter and feed homeless families at two hotels, Capitol City Inn and the Pitts Motor Hotel in Northwest Washington. Parham said the spending reflected the city's compassion.

"That's not compassion," Crawford responded. "That's foolishness."

Crawford, chairman of the council's Committee on Human Services, promised that before the budget review ends he intends to force the city to spend money more efficiently by limiting the number of homeless families to be sheltered.

"When we are done with this budget, there should be no more than a couple of shelters left," Crawford said.

The millions of dollars the city has spent on homelessness have not always produced a pretty picture.

In a scramble to find additional space for homeless families during the last two years, the city has placed them at St. Elizabeths Hospital, a boarding house frequented by prostitutes and a school gymnasium.

During fiscal 1988, the city paid $3.5 million to house families, most of them single women with children, at the Capitol City Inn, 1850 New York Ave. NE. Marlene Taylor said she and her four children moved into the hotel six months ago after she was evicted for failing to pay $96 in back rent. The city now pays $3,480 a month to house and feed her family at the hotel.

Several mothers at Capitol City recently complained of unbearable stress, frustration and hopelessness. Some of them seek solace in drugs that they say are prevalent at the hotel.

In the several weeks that she has lived at Capitol City, a mother of three, who asked not to be identified, said she has watched children as young as 12 sell drugs and New York drug dealers "set up shop" in some of the rooms.

"It is hard to say no to drugs when you are here," the mother said. "I've used it four or five times and I don't have an income. I didn't have to buy it. The dealers just say try this and see if you like it. I guess they figure if I like it, I'll find the money."

The District is not alone in seeing homelessness take a bigger slice of the fiscal pie. In 1983, Philadelphia spent $3.1 million on shelter services for the homeless, according to a city spokesman. Last year, Philadelphia spent $15.9 million on homelessness.

But some larger cities spend a great deal less. Chicago, with a population of more than 3 million, spent $14 million in city, state and federal funds to house and feed the homeless in fiscal 1988, said Chicago Human Services Commissioner Judith Walker.

"We've got the advocates demanding more from the mayor every day," Walker said. "We are just behind {the District} by a number of years. Unless we come to grips with low-income housing, we're going to see a lot of crazy ways to spend money on the homeless that may not be the most efficient ways."

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.