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Below is an excerpt from the blog post ‘Legal Aid Urges The Council To Vote ‘No’ On Homeless Services Bill’, originally posted by the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia and written by Damon King.

Tomorrow morning, September 20, the D.C. Council’s Committee on Human Services will vote on the Homeless Services Reform Amendment Act of 2017, a package of policy changes that will deeply affect services for members of our community struggling with homelessness. Legal Aid opposes this legislation, urges the members of the Committee to vote against it, and urges you to contact the Council via the action alerts at the end of this post.

Taken as a whole, the bill narrows the door to shelter for families while also leaving those in the homeless services system more vulnerable to being cut off from services, even when they are at high risk for cycling back into homelessness. Without significant changes, this bill will harm District families – from those who have just fallen into homelessness and need a safe place to stay, to those struggling to maintain housing in the District’s troubled Rapid Re-Housing program.

At a public hearing in June, Legal Aid testified in detail about the range of problems that this bill presents. You can read our testimony here and here. Legal Aid has also worked closely with our legal services partners, including Children’s Law Center and Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, who used the June hearing to raise similar concerns. Today, though, we want to focus on two ways in which the bill has the potential to harm District families.

Read the full post ‘Legal Aid Urges The Council To Vote ‘No’ On Homeless Services Bill’ by Damon King at the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia HERE. And take action today by contacting members of the Human Services Committee and telling them to vote NO on this harmful bill. Contact information for members of the Committee can be found here.