DC Pilot Program Set to Help with Homelessness

• Author: Chris Remington
• Posted: 2023-12-18

There is a lot to be said about Washington DC and its current economic situation. If one wants to view the staunch dichotomy between rich and poor, care and neglect, then the District is probably the best place to look. Those who are political power brokers, lawyers, doctors, and others with a President's Street address live in some of the wealthiest and most peaceful conditions in America. Pure calm and serenity with financial stability. Across town, however, garbage lines the crime-riddled streets and some of these areas look more like a third world country in the midst of a war rather than the nation's capitol city. If politicians cannot get a grasp on crime, poverty and homelessness where the politicians actually live, where can they deal with it? This is a question that's often asked by the American public at large, and it's a question whose answer has been silent for generations. Current Mayor Muriel E. Bowser has vowed to finally do something about the city. She is creating an initiative to fight homelessness in DC through a pilot program with a $25 million price tag.

According to Mayor Bowser, this $25 million program will help 600 families. Doing the math here, this is a little more than $41,000 for each of the 600 families, in theory. The Mayor's plan is to give these families $10,000 each, as sort of an economic stimulus, while using the rest to help them find stability. The issue in her way, however, is that the District doesn't really have much affordable housing available, so this isn't a program for permanent housing. The only places that one can find truly affordable housing in DC is in the broken-down, crime-riddled ghetto portions of the city, and these are economic dead zones where unemployment is incredibly high and there are very few opportunities. And it's not as if politicians who live in luxury houses and apartments are going to invite the construction of low income housing in their neighborhoods. So, where does that leave poor and homeless people in DC?

The workaround here for Bowser is that her new pilot program, called the "Career Mobility Act Plan," isn't actually a program that's going to help people find housing. In fact, this is a program aimed at people who aren't necessarily in the market for permanent housing. In other words, this program is for people and families who are in shelters and in temporary housing, and the idea is that this program will help these people find financial stability while they work on their careers and getting their feet back under them.

This new assistance program is about "filling the gap," claimed Mayor Bowser. The gap between getting off the streets and finding something more stable. The plan has bipartisan support and has been championed as something that might actually have an impact, since the goal is to help people help themselves and not to create a permanent class of dependents by offering them state housing.

A Growing Problem Bereft Actionable Solutions

All across America, homelessness is a problem that's growing exponentially. In California, for instance, homelessness has nearly doubled in the past decade, all while the state's Governor, Gavin Newsom, campaigned for his entire career on solving the issue. Still, he's done less than nothing about the problem. In fact, he's just presided over the issue getting worse, and there are zero new assistance programs for the state's homeless. This same song plays in nearly every other state dealing with the issue. Politicians give good speeches for the television, and they point the finger at the opposition party, but nothing ever gets done for the people suffering.

Washington DC is now standing out in many ways as the first place in America to take the problem of homelessness seriously since the COVID pandemic hit in 2020. States like Washington and Oregon love boasting about caring for their homeless populations, but then do nothing about the issue. Mayor Bowser's pilot program is an attempt to help families directly, and hopefully to keep the program going every year so they can address new families who are suffering.

Like any other government assistance program, people are taking it with a grain of salt. With so much corruption and lost money and negative results, it's not as if the government has a great track record of helping people. However, this program is set up differently, and it's set up to help people help themselves, which is far more in line with what people need to achieve success.