Rich Ward 1 residents scream about proposed homeless shelter

On the 17th of February, FOX News pre-empted the crime coverage that usually starts their broadcast to focus on furious upscale residents at a Van Ness community meeting. The subject was Mayor Bowser's proposal to locate one of 8 dispersed homeless shelters in their neighborhood. Objections to opening a homeless shelter in upscale neighborhoods like anywhere in Ward 1 are usually based in NIMBYism (not in my back yard) fortified with an unhealthy heap of racism. In this case, there are legitimate questions about Mayor Bowser's objectives, given her police raids on homeless camps and her seeming belief that more arrests,searches, and police harassment can solve any social problem.

That FOX broadcast may have contained a nugget of truth, as it described the Mayor's plan to replace the facilities at DC General with 8 smaller shelters (one in each ward) as a plan to "disperse" the homeless. That would fit the objectives of the pre-winter police raid on the homeless encampment at the Va Ave underpass as well. There is also the high probability that residents of Wards 1 and 2 at least will stop or be allowed to stop the shelters planned for their areas. If those shelters are stopped but the Mayor deems the building of the other six to be enough to close the family shelter at DC General, the result could be a 25% reduction of total shelter capacity. If the Mayor and her cronies can't get rid of the law requiring them to put families in hotels, they could either expel all single men from shelters, pay millions in taxpayer funds to rent those hotel rooms, or both.

One activist said over Twitter "The mayor closing down homeless camps and criminalizing homelessness is NOT interested in solving the housing problem. #BounceBowser"