to avoid leaving dozens of unhoused residents out in the cold with nowhere to go.Of the estimated 70 people packed into the park, just 15 had been approved to receive housing assistance from the District as of Wednesday morning, according to Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Wayne Turnage. Ten more were awaiting approval, Turnage said, while the rest had “simply refused to engage with our team.
Amid the commotion, Shelley Byars, 45, stepped out from her own tent on the park’s southern corner. She pulled on thick gloves against the cold wind. Byars said she lived in Oxon Run Park, in Southeast Washington, before migrating to McPherson. Although she knew officials were planning to clear the downtown encampment, she said she had little idea how or when the removal would happen. Notices announcing the new date were posted around the park Monday, but residents kept ripping them down.“How are we supposed to move all our stuff?” Byars said. “We’re not camping. We live here.
was declared over. But Turnage had asked the National Park Service, which oversees the park grounds, to move up its timeline because of “high levels of illegal drug and other criminal activity” that “impedes social services’ outreach and endangers social services providers, mental health clinicians, unsheltered individuals and the public,”D.C. had a plan to end chronic homelessness.