D.C. COUNCIL MEMBERS AGAIN DELAY ACTION ON REDUCING AID FOR HOMELESS

CRAWFORD CITES DISAGREEMENT OVER 'SENSITIVE POLITICAL ISSUE'

For the second time this month, D.C. Council members have postponed action on a proposal to reduce the city's benefits to the homeless amid growing concerns that scaling down the program as winter approaches might generate a political backlash.

The Human Services Committee put off yesterday for at least another week consideration of a proposal to reduce the city's obligation to the homeless embodied in the voter-approved Initiative 17, which states that anyone seeking emergency shelter has a right to receive it.

Council member H.R. Crawford (D-Ward 7), chairman of the committee, said he delayed action partly because committee members still disagree on how to refine the proposal, which is likely to attract strong opposition from advocates for the homeless.

"It's a very sensitive political issue," Crawford said.

Advocates for the homeless, who have strongly urged council members to leave the shelter law intact, expressed relief that the committee delayed action.

"My hope is that it would be put off for some time," said Mitch Snyder, a leader of the Community for Creative Non-Violence.

The committee did discuss a proposal to require the city to take swift action to address the problem of "boarder babies," infants who are abandoned by their parents and who languish in hospitals, sometimes for months, though they are healthy.

Crawford said he intends to introduce a proposal stipulating that when any child is left in a hospital by a parent or custodian for more than 30 days, the city will cite the adults with neglect and move to take custody of the child.

Hospital and city officials, who testified before the committee in a public hearing, told Crawford that the 30-day period may be too long. Crawford said later that he may amend his proposal to stipulate that the District will move to take custody of any child left in a hospital after doctors have determined that the child is medically fit to leave.

Barbara Burke-Tatum, commissioner of the Department of Social Services, told the committee that 38 boarder baby cases are under investigation, many of them involving the children of drug-addicted parents.

Crawford and other committee members acknowledged in interviews that they are worried about the political repercussions of trying to scale back the city's homeless law.

Three of the five members of the committee are involved in 1990 election campaigns. They are John Ray (D-At Large), a candidate for mayor, John A. Wilson (D-Ward 2), a candidate for council chairman, and Harry Thomas Sr. (D-Ward 5), who is seeking reelection.

"I don't want to deal with a whole bunch of homeless people in the middle of the winter," Wilson said. "It's a real bad Catch-22."

City officials say some change in the law is needed because of its mounting cost. The annual cost associated with the law has nearly tripled, from $10 million in fiscal 1985, the first full year of implementation, to $27 million in fiscal 1988. Officials project that the District's 1989 appropriation for the homeless will reach $32 million.

Crawford said the committee is trying to fashion a more moderate version of a plan by council member Nadine P. Winter (D-Ward 6). Her plan would, among other things, impose a residency requirement and mandate that people seeking shelter get identification cards to prove that they are District residents.

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