Public Employee Press

DC 37 blocks eviction of 300 workers from shelters

The union and the Dept. of Homeless Services agree on a plan to provide housing subsidies for homeless members

In response to a threat to evict 300 working city employees, including many DC 37 members, from city homeless shelters, the union met with the Dept. of Homeless Services to protect members and their families currently living in shelters.

DC 37 and DHS have agreed to a new Work Advantage program that will provide qualified city workers — and anyone who works over 20 hours a week and lives in a shelter — with a subsidy covering almost 100 percent of their rent for up to a year and a matched savings plan.
“In one of the world’s most expensive cities, with little being done to build or preserve affordable housing, these evictions were totally unjustified,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts.

When the union’s Municipal Employees Housing Program began hearing from members who were being ordered to leave the shelters by April 30, Roberts reached out to city officials on behalf of the affected DC 37 members.

As DHS tried to force out the city workers, lawyers from the union’s Municipal Employees Legal Services told shelter directors the evictions were illegal because the shelters must go to housing court to evict residents.

Meanwhile, Roberts and other union officials quickly met with the DHS commissioner, who assured Roberts that DHS has begun to place DC 37 members and their families in permanent housing.

“This is one of the reasons we are pushing to broaden the area where our members are allowed to live,” Roberts said. The union negotiated an expansion of the residency requirement to include six surrounding counties, but at PEP press time the City Council was delaying Intro. 452, which would implement that change.

DC 37 members earn, on average, just over $30,000 annually. Housing costs are lower in many of the counties Intro. 452 would include. This problem speaks volumes about what’s happening in this city, and not just with salaries, said Assistant Associate Director Henry Garrido, who runs the union’s housing program. “This is one of the reasons Ms. Roberts established the DC 37 Municipal Employees Housing Program, to protect members who fall into difficult circumstances.”

The Work Advantage program would give the homeless who qualify a chance to get on their feet again and develop good fiscal habits of saving regularly and making payments on time, Roberts said.

Program participants must meet federal poverty guidelines. The program would let them save up to 20 percent of their annual rent in a bank account, and the city would match it by the end of the program.

Participants would be required to pay directly to their landlord $50 a month in rent, which the city would match and add to the savings account. City agencies would provide support services such as child care and social services, food stamps and public assistance.