The number of Washington, D.C. residents who died while unhoused decreased in 2021 for the first time since 2016, while D.C. council members and government officials disagree over how to ensure this trend continues in the future.
Between 2013 and 2020, the District saw a 600% increase in deaths of people experiencing homelessness. In 2021, there was a 31% decrease in deaths with 124 deaths in the calendar year compared to 180 deaths in 2020. The most recent census of unhoused individuals in the District in January 2021 found that about 5,111 residents in the District are currently experiencing homelessness.
The Pandemic Emergency Program for Medically Vulnerable Individuals (PEP-V), a program introduced at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, offers hotel room accommodations for unhoused people at high risk of severe COVID-19 illness before eventually transferring them to permanent supportive housing.
The program may have led to the decline in deaths, according to Ann Marie Staudenmaier, staff attorney at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless.
“I attribute the drop this year in deaths to PEP-V, because it really took a lot of those medically vulnerable people and got them off the streets in a really quick way,” Staudenmeier said in an interview with The Hoya. “With PEP-V, they literally offer somebody a hotel room, and they could be in that room that night. It really was life-saving, and I think that contributed to the drop in deaths.”
PEP-V’s success, in addition to the decrease in deaths, warrants the expansion of the program as it faces discontinuity, Staudenmaier said.
“We want to see the city continue that program, and we’ve tried really hard to get the city to expand it over the last two years and COVID, and have had moderate success with that,” Staudenmaier said. “But I don’t know that the city government will continue it once COVID is really, you know, gone.”
PEP-V may provide a blueprint for protecting unhoused individuals who are at increased risk for various illnesses, according to Maya Brennan, housing advisor for At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman.
“When COVID is no longer as much of a public health threat, there are other viruses, such as the flu, that also pose a much greater health and fatality risk based on age and underlying conditions,” Brennan wrote to The Hoya. “So, it does seem worth looking into ways to keep the highest-risk segment of those experiencing homelessness out of congregate settings where virus transmission is harder to avoid, even after the COVID risk is minimal.”
Still, there are conflicting opinions among council members regarding the expansion of PEP-V.
According to Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Naudeau (D), PEP-V fails to remedy the issue of homelessness in the long term.
“I would say that PEP-V is a stop-gap and housing is the answer,” Naudeau wrote to The Hoya.
The Coordinated Assistance and Resources for Encampments (CARE) program launched in August of 2021 in an effort to close three specific homeless encampments — located at the L and M St. Underpasses, O St. NW and E St. NW — around the District and connect residents with housing and services. However, the program received criticism for the premature closure of many encampments during the coldest months of the year, which forced many residents to clear encampment sites without having received housing.
Legislation to help unhoused District residents should not require them to clear their belongings, Staudenmaier said.
“I’d like to see legislation that doesn’t allow the city to conduct these aggressive and encampment clearings where they drive people away, and basically take away their personal items and destroy them,” Satudenmaier said.
Programs confronting homelessness in the District must include collaboration between various District agencies to succeed, according to Brennan.
“One of the important pieces of addressing homelessness in the District is making sure that our agencies are talking to each other,” Brennan wrote. “Because if they aren’t, there’s no way their programs are reaching people well.”
