An End In Sight for DC General Family Shelter

This week, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that the city will be closing the DC General Family Shelter by the end of 2018. This is earlier than expected as the previous iteration of the plan would have kept the shelter open until 2020 when all of the new Short-term Transitional Housing facilities would be operational. (Three of the new shelters – in Wards 4, 7 & 8 – are slated to open by the end of this year.) According to the Washington Post, the District will stop placing families in DC General in May and will start deconstructing one of the vacant buildings on the DC General campus this coming April. The rest of the DC General buildings will be taken down by the end of the year.

DC General is frequently referred to as a dilapidated shelter with a plethora of problems ranging from a rodent infestation to a lack of hot water. City officials have said that any family still living in DC General when it is ready to be razed will be moved to another shelter placement, though details about how this will happen without the completion of all the new facilities have not yet been shared. Read here for more information on the closure of DC General in the Washington Post and WAMU.