D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared public emergencies in response to the rise in youth violence and opioid overdoses.
The number of people dying from opioid overdoses is skyrocketing in the District while the number of young people arrested for serious and violent crimes like carjacking and homicide also is on the rise.
To help address the problems, Bowser declared public emergencies, saying overdoses and youth violence have reached crisis levels.
“We have too many people dying in our city related to fentanyl overdoses … We have too many young people involved in violent activity in our city, both causing violence and becoming victims of violence,” she said.
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Declaring emergencies will allow District agencies to move faster to make changes, Bowser said.
When it comes to addressing youth violence, Bowser once again insisted more young people need to be detained in the District’s secured Youth Services Center while they await trial rather than being released to home detention of halfway houses.
D.C. Youth Rehabilitation Services Director Sam Abed appeared before a D.C. Superior Court judge Monday facing possible contempt of court citations for not having enough space in those halfway houses, especially for girls.
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According to data provided by DYRS, the District has not increased the number of halfway house beds for girls since 2019. Currently, D.C. has 38 beds in shelter housing — 30 for boys and eight for girls.
Abed told the judge he hopes to sign a deal with three private companies to provide as many as 24 additional beds for boys and girls, but he declined to say how many of those would be for girls
“We are working with providers right now, and so, we want to keep flexibility,” he said. “I don’t want to pre-judge what we’re going to do. We have to work with certain agencies — court social services and DYRS — work together on developing this capacity, but we are going to have additional girls capacity.”
The mayor’s order allows the District to provide incentives to private companies to provide more halfway house beds for girls.
The order also calls for DYRS to develop a plan to monitor young people required to wear GPS monitoring devices and respond immediately if concerns arise.
As for reducing overdoses, the mayor’s order will allow outreach teams to deploy to overdose hot spots more quickly by sharing data from all local agencies.
The D.C. Council had called on Bowser to declare a more robust public health emergency regarding the opioid crisis, but she said she didn’t want to go that far.
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