While the total won’t be finalized for several months, DC Government officials reported this morning that the District is on target to have a surplus of approximately $140 million as Fiscal Year 2012 draws to a close on Sunday. In spite of such a strong end-of-year bottom line, DC’s Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi did not revise his revenue projections for Fiscal Year 2013, leaving “Wish List” priorities unfunded. We therefore urge...

Thank you to everyone who responded to our email action last week demanding that Mayor Gray’s Administration immediately start serving homeless families who have nowhere to go. If you are one of the more than 300 community members who participated, you probably received a form response from the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services, Beatriz Otero. We imagine you found her answer to be somewhat unsatisfying, as we did.  Our colleague Matt...

Last Tuesday, members of the Interagency Council on Homelessness (“ICH”) gathered at a public meeting, as they do each year, to approve or reject the city’s Winter Plan for shelter. Legal Clinic attorney and ICH member Scott McNeilly highlighted some issues with the Winter Plan on this blog last week, and he raised some of these same issues at the vote on Tuesday. In the end, the plan was approved with three members, Scott McNeilly, Donald...

by Scott McNeilly Last month, one hundred and ninety-seven families came into the District of Columbia’s Virginia Williams Family Resource Center to apply for emergency shelter.  Fifty seven of those families were determined to have no other temporary or safe place to stay the night they applied.  None of those families received emergency shelter.  Until the weather turns hypothermic, none will. Next week, DC’s Interagency Council on...

Budget season is over and it’s been a pretty exciting ride.  This year, the D.C. Council really stepped up and, through restorations and investments, supported many programs relied upon by low-income and no-income D.C. residents. The Council put $4 million into the tenant-based Local Rent Supplement Program in order to provide permanent affordable housing to about 250 homeless families in the District and open up much-needed space in emergency...

In giving final approval to the FY 2013 Budget Support Act today, the D.C. Council voted to delay additional cuts in TANF for a year.  Councilmembers Jim Graham and Michael Brown introduced the amendment with the one-year delay language, and all but three Councilmembers voted in favor of the amendment.  (Councilmembers Alexander,Catania, and Mendelson voted against the delay). In passing this amendment, councilmembers recognized that the...