COLD WINTER FORESEEN FOR D.C. HOMELESS

LACK OF SHELTERS FOUND DURING RECENT CHILL

An early crush of homeless people seeking shelter, coupled with a shortage of available beds, has caught District officials unprepared and threatens to leave hundreds of people out in the cold this winter, according to city shelter directors.

Private and government-sponsored shelters throughout the city reported turning away dozens of new homeless individuals and families each night last week, and shelter workers fear that the situation is likely to grow much gloomier as colder weather sets in.

"The homeless situation has just been unbelievable these last couple of weeks," said Joann Shipe Yates, director of My Sister's Place, a shelter for abused women and their children. "People are calling at 2 and 3 o'clock in the morning wanting to come here because somebody has thrown them out of their home. I definitely think it's going to be worse when it gets colder."

Aggravating the problem is the absence this year of a federally funded homeless shelter in Southeast Washington that temporarily had provided nearly 400 beds last winter, as well as delays in the renovation of the city's largest shelter at 2nd and D streets NW, operated by the Community for Creative Non-Violence.

The federal shelter, run by the D.C. Coalition for the Homeless, was closed in April and has not been replaced. CCNV reduced the capacity of its shelter from about 1,100 to about 600 when it began $6.5 million in renovations to half of its building in June.

CCNV, which received $5 million in federal funds for construction, had hoped to finish the first phase of the project by Dec. 22 but was set back five weeks when a manufacturer was unable to deliver windows for the building, CCNV leader Mitch Snyder said.

Snyder said he hopes construction can be completed before Christmas. Even when finished, though, the renovations will not increase capacity, Snyder warned, and the city still will fall 400 beds short of what was available a year ago.

He said he is negotiating with city officials to forgo alterations to the building's massive basement and instead turn it into a gigantic dormitory that would restore D.C. shelter capacity for homeless men to the 1985 level.

"We are doing everything we can to hold the line from last year," Snyder said. "But where are all the other people going to go?"

Since abandoning its shelter in Southeast in April, the homeless coalition has established a total of about 100 beds in four facilities in Northwest Washington. But coalition Executive Director Patricia Makin said those are occupied by men involved in finding jobs and becoming self-sufficient and are not available for emergency shelter.

A report released last year estimated the number of homeless people in the city as 6,454, nearly triple the 2,330 beds available then in 30 public and privately run shelters.

Yates and five other women's shelter directors reported figures this week showing they already are nearly 20 percent over capacity with temperatures still well above freezing. Yates, who contracts with the city to provide 21 beds, said she now turns away "12 to 15 families" a day and still is one person over her rated capacity of 24.

"Twenty-six or 27 is just about the most that we've ever had," she said. "I would have no place to put them if it went over that. They would have to sleep on the floor."

At the Luther Place Women's Shelter at 1226 Vermont Ave. NW, 51 homeless women -- double the capacity -- spent the night Thursday, director Erna Steinbruck said.

Shelter providers contend that city officials have made virtually no plans to cope with an expected overflow, despite early indications of a potential crisis.

The providers were unable to pinpoint a cause for the dramatic and unseasonable rise in demand for beds but said they believe shortages in affordable housing, dismissals from hospitals and mental facilities and increasing awareness about shelters have contributed to the glut.

"I'm disturbed that there was not knowledge that a crisis would come," said Sandra Brawders, director of House of Ruth. Brawders said she has been reporting to city officials for months with unusually large numbers of battered and homeless women there. "Where's the planning?"

Brawders said calls to the shelter's emergency hot line have doubled to 400 a month since June, and 97 women -- 13 over capacity -- were being housed there Friday.

"There's just no room," she said. "We did not see any slacking off during the summer. It's just not there."

D.C. social services commissioner Audrey Rowe said she was not aware of a potential shortfall in beds for the homeless until she met with shelter directors Wednesday and that the city hopes to have a plan within two weeks for placing 30 women.

"Clearly, we're going to do some expansion," Rowe said. "This administration's policy is that anyone who needs shelter and wants shelter will get it."

Rowe said the city is considering placing 30 women in nursing homes and hospitals and that other homeless women might be brought indoors by establishing a 24-hour "drop-in center" that would contain no beds but at least would provide warmth and a place to sit down.

Shelter providers, however, said it is extremely unlikely that such a center could be opened this year.

The work on the CCNV shelter has complicated matters further for homeless female clients, who were transferred temporarily to an empty school building at 1725 Lincoln St. NE that is scheduled to be closed next month after complaints from neighborhood residents.

CCNV worker Elizabeth Beck, who runs the shelter there, said she does not know what will happen if the women are forced to move again.

The CCNV has set capacity at the school shelter at 100, but on Thursday, 115 women were being housed there, many sleeping on cots in hallways. "If something doesn't change, this winter we'll have 160 or 170," Beck said, "and I don't know what to do with them."

"I think the housing situation is getting worse and worse. It's getting harder for people to make it," said Celeste Valente, a social worker at the Mount Carmel shelter for women. "They can't find rooms. We know people who are paying virtually 100 percent of their incomes for rent. And if one little thing happens, you're in big trouble."

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.