Weekly Roundup: What Happened?

Here’s a roundup of some of the stories we’ve been following this week:

~ Pushback over the upcoming closing of the Franklin Shelter came to a head when the DC Council passed emergency legislation ensuring that shelter will be made available for 300 homeless men by the scheduled October 1st closing date. However, the bill doesn’t appear to ensure that those 300 men will be the ones who are actually being moved out of Franklin – so there may still be the same danger that people will fall through the cracks. We’ll keep tracking this. On a tangentially-related note, New York City has reached a long-delayed agreement over what, exactly, the City’s responsibility is to its most vulnerable residents. Sounds like the kind of step forward that DC might need to take soon.

~ CareFirst gave some pushback of its own to the proposed legislation that would re-appropriate some of its hefty surplus and channel it back to the community. As part of said community that needs support to meet the great demand for health care, we are very curious to see how this debate plays out.

~ More remembrance of Ruben Gist, a friend and partner at the Capital Area Food Bank.

~ And, ahem, this is a story that we meant to get to last week – and didn’t, which was unfortunate, because it’s really cool: the Superior Court has opened a satellite office in Bread for the City’s Southeast center, to provide walk-in legal advice on family matters. Stay tuned for more information on this next week!