Committee on Human Services- Councilman Matt Frumin Oversight Roundtable on the Eligibility process at Virginia Williams
October 8, 2026
Good Morning Councilman Frumin and others, my name is LaJuan Brooks and I am the Director of Community Engagement with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless. I am here today testifying on behalf of my experience in this role and the many families our organization has encountered and or represented due to being denied shelter placement. Some of their stories you will hear firsthand today. In addition to the community engagement, and systemic advocacy work that we do, a large portion of our work focuses on ensuring that families have a safe and stable place to go when they are seeking shelter. Families in DC, have one option that is available to them. And that is to go through the intake process at the Virginia Williams family Resource Center. As you will most likely hear today, the process of accessing family shelter is not an easy one. It is layered with barriers and uncertainties for the family. Daily, families are entering Virginia Williams for shelter and daily those same families are being turned away with no safe place to go. Families are being left in limbo and most are being denied placement. Based on the conversations my team has had with families attempting to access shelter, a large majority of them are being asked to provide documentation that they are unable to access or are being tasked with providing information that should not factor into their need for a safe place to sleep but sadly it does. One example is when families are asked to provide the name and number of family members or friends who they “may” be able to stay with and then being denied placement if they are not able to provide that information. Another example is families who have been asked to provide a copy of a lease from someone they’ve stayed with weeks or months ago to prove they are not on the lease which in my opinion is one of the most egregious tasks that clients have been asked to do. Especially since quite a few of them have stayed with family members or friends they are no longer in contact with. Yet, if they cannot provide this information again, they are turned away. Most of us know from experience that despite what some may say, the option to stay with a family member or friend for a night or two or over the weekend does not mean that they can stay indefinitely. One resolution that is available, but we rarely hear is being used, is the Interim Eligibility placement option. This option ensures the family’s safety and also provides time for any necessary documentation to be acquired without causing additional harm to the family. I have seen far too many families return to unsafe situations due to a shelter denial and that can prove costly for some families. Prior to the January 2025 relocation of Virginia Williams Family Resource Center to 64 New York Avenue, they were located at 920 Rhode Island Avenue NE. During the last 2 – 2 ½ years at that location, the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless had a consistent presence there. We were there weekly on Monday and Wednesdays, and our presence played an intricate part in eliminating some of the gaps we are currently seeing. We were able to, in real time, connect families that had been denied shelter to an attorney who would legally advocate for placement for the family. Typically, after advocacy the family was then placed despite being refused placement by Virginia Williams staff. Since January 2025, we have had to become very creative in our efforts to reach those families applying for shelter. We’ve emailed school homeless liaisons, we’ve dropped flyers at the Family Collaboratives, the UPO offices, and many other places where we believed families would come in contact with our information. We’ve physically gone to the new location to drop off flyers and to try to connect with families that were on site. We’ve spoken with the staff at Neighborhood Legal Services who willing agreed to share our correspondence with any family they come in contact with who may have been denied shelter placement through Virginia Williams. Up until the end of August, we were even able to leave flyers at the buildings front desk with their security. Unfortunately, during my last visit I was informed by the building security staff that they were told to “no longer accept our correspondence”. I addressed this concern and made an inquiry with the DHS Deputy Administrator, as to who gave the directive that we were no longer able to leave flyers and that question was never directly answered. I was simply told via email that I was not allowed to leave flyers with building security only at the security desk at the Virginia Williams office. No other explanation was given and I was never told on whose authority the directive was given. With Hypothermia season quickly approaching our concerns for the families seeking shelter increasingly grows. As of today, we have not had access to Virginia Williams for almost 2 years and the increase in family shelter denials that we are currently seeing is indicative of the need for legal services to once again be present in that space. I am hopeful that after it is all said and done, that significant steps will be taken to ensure that families seeking shelter through the intake process at Virginia Willams will no longer be forced into unsafe and harmful environments again and that a real solution in bridging the gap will be implemented. Thank you for your time and I am happy to address any questions.