The District of Columbia is preparing to remove families experiencing homelessness from a hotel in July, according to multiple reports attributed to the DC Department of Human Services.
The Quality Inn Motel on New York Avenue in Northeast DC has been in use for housing homeless families over the past five years.
The move was first reported by the Washington City Paper.
The city’s decision is part of a long-term plan to stop the practice of using motels as overflow shelters by the end of this year.
The current residents — 59 families — will be given two weeks notice before they have to leave the motel. Eighteen of those families will be admitted to the District’s rapid re-housing program by signing leases, while five will receive a permanent supportive housing voucher.
The agency is promising to place the 36 remaining families by mid-July.
At the end of the removal, the Days Inn will remain as the only motel used for the purpose of housing people experiencing homelessness.
“We will be implementing a number of strategies to close the hotel as a family shelter including, but not limited to, assisting families who are in the lease up pipe-line to move to permanent housing and transferring families to other shelters in the District’s Continuum of Care where we have vacancies,” Noah Abraham, an official at the DC Department of Human Services, was quoted as saying by the Washington City Paper.
The agency stopped accepting new families at the Quality Inn this spring. However, they still make new placements at other motels in the area like the Ivy City Hotel and Hotel Arboretum.
Some rooms in those motels were also used for sheltering unhoused people who have displayed symptoms of COVID-19.