Update on the Franklin Shelter Closing

There's a great link to some of the latest information about the fight to keep the Franklin Shelter open. As the homeless population continues to mobilize (and the date of the closure gets closer), I'm sure we'll be hearing much more on this. There's a good video and some information on Streats TV.

For those of you are just catching up on this, Mayor Fenty announced in April that the Franklin Shelter, the only low barrier men's shelter downtown, was going to be closed as he plans to open 350 units of permanent supportive housing through the Housing First initiative. It's a surprise to no one that these 350 units are (to put it politely) way behind schedule, and the Shelter is going to be closed on October 1st anyway, leaving up to 300 men per night sleeping on the streets.

Mayor Fenty promised to keep the Franklin Shelter open, and though broken promises don't make politicians lose sleep, this one should because shortly after October 1st comes a giant reason to keep homeless individuals off the street--life threatening winter conditions. Promises might not mean much, but condemning a human being to death will hopefully mean something.

For more background information, you can read Kate's initial report posted in July.