Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) addresses a community meeting at Friendship Baptist Church in Ward 6 on Feb. 11 in Washington, where a discussion was held about replacing the D.C. General shelter with family housing facilities. (Amanda Voisard/For The Washington Post)
The number of homeless families in the District has soared by more than 30 percent compared with a year ago, according to a federal estimate released Wednesday.
For the first time since the annual census began in 2001, homeless children and their parents in the District outnumbered homeless single adults, a population beset by mental illness and disabilities that historically has loomed as the larger and more intractable problem in cities nationwide.
On one day in late January, officials counted 4,667 homeless children and their parents, compared with 3,683 single adults.
It is impossible to know precisely what is driving the increase. But city officials and advocates for the poor agree that rising costs in one of the country’s hottest real estate markets, combined with a policy of helping families without a permanent place to call home, has produced record numbers at city shelters.
“We are in the midst of a very serious affordable-housing crisis,” said Kate Coventry, an analyst at the left-leaning D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute.
The District, New York City and Massachusetts are the only major U.S. jurisdictions that guarantee homeless residents a right to shelter. All three are grappling with a substantial increase in the homeless population.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/there-are-now-more-homeless-kids-and-parents-in-dc-than-single-adults-for-the-first-time/2016/05/11/d4d256c2-16f5-11e6-9e16-2e5a123aac62_story.html?utm_term=.f22a29c356bb
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