After a baseball game in Washington most of the crowd (such as it is) heads to the Navy Yard/Ballpark Metro stop. All take the Green Line away from the park. My friends and I got off after two stops, at L’Enfant Plaza, and transferred to the Silver Line to get to Alexandria, Virginia and our hotel.
When we got to the Rosslyn stop we rode the escalator to the station entrance, moving quietly since we were among the lodging for a dozen or so people.
As with most major cities, some people in Alexandria spend the night in the public transit hub. While open air it is protected from most storms and the dark corners offer an illusion of privacy.
That Sunday’s Washington Post carried an article on how families with employed adults struggle to find housing, with the headline,
Should cities subsidize housing for a family making $141,000?
Such tensions are acute in the District. A rising population and booming real estate development have brought trendy restaurants and luxury apartment buildings to neighborhoods that were once refuges for those with modest incomes.
So, when families headed by teachers and managers need help to live near where they work, what is the answer for the homeless?
Alexandria takes basically the same approach as St. Louis:
Homeless Services Assessment Center (HSAC)
As part of the City of Alexandria Continuum of Care response to homelessness, HSAC allows for the efficient and effective connection of persons to services through a comprehensive assessment.
Additionally, all persons will be assessed for diversion services creating an opportunity to address the housing crisis with targeted assistance while averting unnecessary entry into the shelter system.
Alas, The Alexandria Winter Shelter Collaborative will be closed April 1, 2019.
As in St. Louis, local government points the homeless towards programs which may help but, come night fall, most folks are on their own. If they are already homeless, few resources are expended on them. Attention is focused on preserving housing opportunities for those with homes.
I’ve made several trips to Washington in recent years. Ironically, most of those trips were to talk about hunger while staying in nice hotels. Each trip I find time to move about the city. And, each evening, I see people settling into the corners for another night on the street – just as I see while heading to my car after a Cardinals game in downtown St. Louis.
Things are the same all over.
Glenn Koenen