BARRY URGED TO LET 2 BUILDINGS BENEFIT HOMELESS

Advocates for the homeless are urging Mayor Marion Barry to cancel his plans to auction two District properties that they say could house families in need of shelter.

The two properties, both abandoned school buildings, are scheduled to be auctioned Wednesday as part of Barry's effort to sell several city-owned sites and help reduce the District's projected budget deficit this year.

"The city keeps saying it doesn't have places to put homeless people, but this would be perfect opportunity to create some," said Susie Sinclair-Smith, director of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. "We were shocked to even see these properties being put up for auction."

She and Brian Carome, executive director of Housing Opportunities for Women, a nonprofit corporation that provides low-cost housing, sent Barry a letter yesterday requesting that he immediately cancel the scheduled auction of the Lenox School, at Third and M streets SE, and the Morgan School, at 2428 17th St. NW.

Lurma Rackley, a spokeswoman for Barry, said the mayor had received the letter, but not had a chance yet to study the housing advocates' argument.

Last month, Barry canceled plans to auction a 143-acre tract that the city owned in Beltsville after objections from officials at the University of the District of Columbia, which uses the land for agricultural experiments.

Barry has estimated that selling the two school buildings, along with about a dozen other city properties he has selected, could inject $10 million into the District's budget.

In their letter, the advocates for the homeless contended that it would be more valuable for the city to convert the two schools into low-income housing units. They said that doing so would help Barry close city shelters such as the Capitol City Inn and the Pitts Motor Hotel, which they argue are unsafe settings for families and a waste of taxpayers' money.

Barry has said he's been trying to close the Capitol City Inn for months, but hasn't yet.

Carome estimated that more than five dozen families could live in the renovated schools.

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