National Parks Service clears Union Station homeless encampment

The Nationwide Park Service on Wednesday morning cleared not less than a dozen tents exterior of Union Station on Columbus Circle.

Driving the information: In accordance with NPS, there had been roughly 30 tents exterior Union Station the day earlier than. However many individuals packed up earlier than the Wednesday clearing.

• U.S. Park Police and a few officers from D.C.’s Division of Behavioral Well being have been on web site as NPS upkeep crews in hazmat fits loaded deserted tents right into a rubbish truck.

State of play: D.C.’s sweeping of homeless encampments has accelerated in latest months, however Wednesday’s was totally different. Since Columbus Circle sits on federal land, the cleanup was led by federal officers and was separate from a D.C. pilot program that pairs clearings with some housing outreach.

• In accordance with an indication posted two weeks previous to the cleanup by NPS, the company paused its enforcement of no-camping zones throughout the pandemic except “in circumstances of imminent threats to public well being and security.”

For many individuals dwelling within the encampment, the clearing meant packing up and shifting to a special piece of public property.

• “We’re sort of like a bit household. We be careful for one another,” encampment resident Smalls Chin, 47, mentioned as she ready to maneuver her tent and sleeping bag to a different park on metropolis land with the assistance of a mutual help group.

Flashback: D.C. officers started clearing homeless encampments in earnest final September as a part of a pilot program to clear encampments and home some residents with one-year leases.

• This system has garnered reward as encampments have grown in latest months, but in addition criticism after one resident in NoMa was lifted by a bulldozer getting used to take away tents.
• Final yr, a number of council members referred to as on town to pause clearing encampments till everybody in them could possibly be housed, however a invoice to pause this system didn’t go.

What they’re saying: Chin says she understood why they have been cleansing the world. “There are rats in every single place,” she mentioned. “It smells horrible.”

• However, she has additionally been in three shelters, together with most lately the Patricia Helpful Place for Girls, and referred to as situations on the shelter “horrific.”
• “The mayor must stroll by means of these shelters. That’s why I’m on the grass,” she mentioned.

Encampment resident Vicki Paige, 51, was not prepared to go away. “You may’t contact my stuff,” she mentioned, including that, except there was a fence or fixed policing, folks would proceed to camp exterior Union Station.

• Because the cleanup wore on and NPS started telling folks inside occupied tents to go away, volunteers helped Paige pack up her tent to maneuver to a different park.

Zoom in: Outreach to these being uprooted included volunteers from The h3 Mission DC, which helps join unhoused folks to providers.

• Ami Angell, the group’s founder, criticized the cleanup for not being paired with housing providers. “There isn’t a plan in place. It’s an unjust scenario,” she advised Axios. “Being advised you need to pack up your complete life … there’s plenty of worry.”

Sure, however: Christy Repress, government director of Pathways to Housing DC, a metropolis contractor that helps join folks to housing vouchers, mentioned they’d been in contact with residents within the lead-up to the closure and helped them assume by means of various plans.

• Some folks, she says, are eligible to maneuver into Bridge Housing, a brief housing program, and PEP-V, a pandemic program that homes medically weak folks in inns.

In an announcement, the deputy mayor for Well being and Human Companies Wayne Turnage mentioned D.C. over the previous three months had been connecting encampment residents with housing help packages, psychological well being providers, and merchandise storage.

• They didn’t present precise numbers on how many individuals had moved into some type of housing.

What’s subsequent: NPS spokesperson Mike Litterst tells Axios that NPS and Park Police are ready to implement the no-tent zone in Columbus Circle however wouldn’t be utilizing fencing.

• One other encampment at twelfth St. and New York Ave. NW was additionally closed.

Housing advocates wish to see voucher matching for everybody throughout the encampments every time there’s a closure.

• “One in every of our issues with [encampment clearings] is: not all people has a housing plan on the finish,” Repress says. “It isn’t simply this encampment, it is different encampments that have been cleared as effectively.”