GOOD NEIGHBORS PROJECT
Post Office Box 27217
Washington, DC 20038
(202) 462-0757

September 5, 1990

Letters to the Editor
Washington POST
15th and L St. NW
Washington, DC

Re: "Pitts Hotel" editorial August 31, 1990

Dear Editor:

It was not sad to read of the end of the Pitts Hotel, the closing of a tradition of greed, a landmark of squalor, a pile of bricks.

What was sad was the POST's decision to take another swipe at Initiative 17.

In 1984, 72% of the people of Washington, D.C. voted for Initiative 17. It is an idealistic law. It insures that this city will provide overnight shelter to any District resident who requests it.

That anything has gone amiss in its implementation since that time is not the fault of this simple law. The fault must go to the government that resisted and failed to follow through on what Initiative 17 mandated.

It is certainly not the fault of the Community for Creative Non-Violence, which stands as a realistic approach to a model shelter. Yet they have been scorned -- largely because they have to shout so loud to be heard by what "the homeless" need most: Community. Family.

Shelter is only supposed to be a temporary solution until a permanent housing plan can be installed. But City officials have yet to manifest any workable plan for this, and temporary shelter has, by necessity, turned permanent.

And now, even this will be trimmed.

Dealing in a responsible way with homelessness will take high energy. Many low-energy people will adopt any excuse if it allows them to forget the homeless. Some say that D.C. is becoming a mecca for the homeless, although government statistics show that 80% of D.C.'s homeless have lived here five years or more.

We, as a civilized society, should provide minimal shelter for all, build more cost-efficient shelters like CCNV, give our elected officials a mandate to convert boarded-up buildings into low-income housing,* and leave the Pitts behind.

/s/Ellen Thomas

Ellen Thomas

Brett Hamrick

_____________________

* One suggestion to all candidates for D.C. public office might be that: (a) City- and H.U.D.-owned boarded-up buildings should be turned over for renovation to non-profits with a track record [such as MANNA, Arch, Habitat for Humanity, S.O.M.E., Samaritan Inns, etc.]; city retains title. (b) Private property holders should be offered a carrot and a stick: substantial tax incentives for converting boarded-up buildings to low-income housing, and heavy tax penalties for buildings which remain unused.