Ribbon cutting for Brookland homeless shelter to take place in August

D.C. officials including Mayor Muriel Bowser and leaders of the city’s Department of Human Services (DHS) will debut a new 46-unit family homeless shelter in Brookland with a ribbon cutting ceremony August 21. The shelter, which is located at 1700 Rhode Island Avenue NE at the site of a former police building, recently won approval from the D.C. Court of Appeals after Northeast neighbors had filed a zoning lawsuit against the project’s location and design.

The shelter is one of several new facilities replacing the shuttered D.C. General megashelter, closed due to its dilapidated conditions by Bowser’s administration last fall. The shelter will provide social services such as employment and housing support to its residents and have a capacity of roughly 150 people, most expected to be children. It is situated in D.C.’s Ward 5.

Currently, the ribbon cutting is scheduled for 11 a.m. to 12 p.m. The District’s homeless population fell earlier this year, to 6,521 people, according to the city’s annual homeless census. That was a 6 percent decrease from 2018, including an 11.8 percent decrease in family homelessness. There were 815 families (with 2,646 people) recorded as homeless.