The Aston homeless shelter is hardly the most tortured construction project in D.C. history. But as delays continue to pile up, it’s making a solid case for the most tormented one in the recent past.
The 100-bed shelter has faced a double whammy in the past two weeks, even as it appeared to be on the cusp of finally opening its doors in the ritzy West End neighborhood on Oct. 1. First, city officials got word that the building, a former George Washington University dorm, failed its final housing code inspection. Then, the District was slapped with yet another round of legal action, as the same group of anonymous neighbors that has spent the past year trying to block the project in court challenged the issuance of its building permit and demanded a halt to construction.
Now there’s no telling when the shelter may finally open its doors, leaving the 50 unhoused people set to become the Aston’s first occupants in the lurch.
A spokesperson for the city’s Department of Human Services, which will manage the shelter when it opens, tells Loose Lips that the agency still “expects the Aston to begin serving clients in the upcoming hypothermia season,” which officially starts Nov. 1 and runs through March 31. But the seemingly unending series of setbacks, largely driven by the area’s wealthy NIMBYs, has left the shelter’s supporters feeling skeptical of any estimates about a timeline.
“We don’t want people to perish waiting to get services, when they could be in the Aston,” says Wesley Thomas, a member of the “community advisory team” guiding the shelter’s opening and a formerly unhoused person who works with Miriam’s Kitchen.
The good news, at least, is that the construction issues that caused the building to fail inspection appear to be relatively minor. Inspectors raised issues about access to fire doors and asked that some parts be replaced on the building’s “automatic door closers,” according to Courtney Cooperman, another member of the community advisory team, and the city should be able to manage those changes pretty quickly.
Still, Cooperman, who also works as an advocacy organizer at the National Low Income Housing Coalition, says it’s “disappointing that those small issues weren’t realized earlier” and that DHS didn’t coordinate more effectively with the Department of General Services, which manages city construction projects.
“To see the opening date pushed back essentially just because of bureaucracy, that’s disappointing,” Cooperman says. “And this is very concrete for people. There were people already planning to move in here.”
The legal action against the shelter represents much more of a wild card. The entity plaguing the shelter known as the “West End DC Community Association” filed an appeal on Oct. 4 of the building permit issued for the facility. The association is requesting that the Board of Zoning Appeals issue an order barring any additional construction or occupancy of the building until the matter is resolved.
The appeal, much like the association’s prior lawsuit targeting the project, focuses on the contention that the property’s use as a temporary shelter with supportive services would violate the area’s zoning regulations that permit only residential buildings. The group’s BZA filing claims that a permit for the project was “fundamentally defective,” and relied on “incomplete, stale, and inaccurate information” from city officials about how the shelter would operate. A spokesperson for the Department of Buildings, which issued the permit, tells LL “the District government does not comment on active litigation.”
DHS officials have said in the past that they believe the building meets all the necessary zoning requirements. But there is some reason to wonder whether the courts will disagree. A D.C. Superior Court judge has twice rejected the District’s attempts to get the association’s first lawsuit tossed out of court. (Though, for what it’s worth, the judge also rejected the association’s motion for a quick resolution of the case known as “summary judgment.”) The case is set for its next hearing in February.
Until the court or the BZA formally steps in to block the project, there is, theoretically, nothing stopping the shelter from opening. (The BZA has yet to set a date for the consideration of the association’s request for a stay on construction.) The bigger problem, Cooperman says, is that the people behind these legal challenges won’t engage directly with their neighbors. And without knowing exactly who they’re dealing with, or how to answer their concerns, city officials and the project’s boosters are being extra cautious for fear that the association’s litigiousness won’t stop at the shelter.
“We’ve had disagreements and had to work to come to a consensus on things, but everyone who’s engaging publicly is at least engaging productively,” Cooperman says. “But the people behind the lawsuit are anonymous. They refuse to be named. And I think they know that they would be shamed if their names were public. They know that their views are the minority. They essentially know that they’re morally wrong.”
LL will note, however, that the court proceedings have provided some clarity on that point. The association has never fully disclosed its membership—nor has its attorney, Scott Morrison of the high-powered law firm Katten Muchin Rosenman, responded to LL’s requests for comment—but it did file some documents describing its backers in broad terms.
The only person to put their name to anything is Sally Blumenthal, who helps lead a condo association at a building around the corner from the shelter, 22 West. She described herself as a member of the association’s board of directors in a January legal filing—neighbors have long suspected her involvement, as the condo association also once hired the pricey firm ArentFox Schiff and councilmember-turned-lobbyist David Grosso, who have been sniffing around the project for some time now.
Blumenthal added in a declaration to the court that the association’s members include other 22 West residents, as well as people living in the Westlight condos nearby and “multiple businesses that own or occupy properties in the immediate vicinity of, including properties on the same block as, the Aston.” The shelter, located at 1133 New Hampshire Avenue NW, shares the block with trendy restaurants such as Rasika West End, Casta’s Rum Bar, and a Call Your Mother deli.
“[The association] and its membership roll of West End property owners and occupants will have been deprived of the protections afforded to them by the zoning regulations” if the shelter is allowed to open, the group’s lawyers argue in the BZA filing.
These opponents do not seem to share the same concern for what will happen to the people deprived of housing as the coldest months of winter arrive. Cooperman hopes that the city will keep them in mind, instead, and meet its commitments amid this pushback.
“By the start of hypothermia [season], that’s when you really start getting to the point where people’s lives will be at risk if they can’t get into this shelter,” Cooperman says. “If there are 50 individuals who could be inside and instead are at risk due to all this, that’s just a big moral failure.”