Remarks of Steve Davis at Department of Human Services/Community Services Board meeting on Monday, September 13.

Good evening. My name is Stephen Davis, and I have lived in Arlington County for 33 years. I’m here today to speak on behalf of the Arlington Green Party in support of a year-round emergency shelter to be established as quickly as possible.

As this Board well knows, homelessness in Arlington has been a long-term and difficult issue. To address this problem, in 2006, the County developed a 10-Year Plan to End Homelessness in Arlington County, Virginia. While the Plan has many laudable aspects, including a multifaceted approach to preventing and dealing with homelessness, in several respects, it also falls short.

The most glaring of the Plan’s deficiencies is the absence of a provision for a year-round emergency shelter in its 5-Year Action Plan. This shortcoming has been reflected in the County Board’s failure to provide funding to keep the current shelter open on a year-round basis. This decision has resulted in higher budget priorities for commendable activities such as funding the arts and parks and recreation, but has left the homeless literally and figuratively out in the cold.

Despite the fact that Arlington is one of the wealthiest, best educated counties in the nation, and despite the fact that all of our neighboring counties and jurisdictions maintain and support year-round shelters for their most vulnerable and indigent populations, the County has failed to close this most egregious hole in the safety net for its most needy and at-risk citizens even though the number of homeless persons in our community has been increasing in spite of the best intentions of the county’s plan to end homelessness.

The County Manager has indicated that budgeting for a permanent year-round shelter may “possibly” occur in FY 2012. We believe that the homeless of Arlington should not have to wait any longer than necessary, nor should they have to rely on vague possibilities for obtaining year-round shelter they so desperately need. We recommend that funding for a year-round shelter should begin in April 2011.

Apart from the humane necessity of taking immediate action to address this issue, there are also practical reasons for doing so. First, the shelter provides not simply a roof over one’s head and a bed, it also provides a stable environment and residence for the homeless where they can gain access to the social services and support they need to escape homelessness. When the seasonal access to the County’s emergency shelter ends, the shelter residents are forced to scatter to the four winds, and effective support for the homeless ends. Only when the season changes does the shelter re-open and the homeless individual must then become re-integrated into the social service network thus losing valuable time and the utilization of existing social services to end his or her homelessness.

What can and should this Board do? While you are not the final decision-makers in determining when and if a permanent, year-round shelter will be funded and developed, you are seen as an effective sounding board for the community’s views and sentiment, and the County Board places great weight on your recommendations and advice.

We therefore urge you to advise the County Board of the critical need for a permanent, adequately-funded, year-round emergency shelter and that establishing this shelter should be given the highest priority in its budgetary decisions.