Thank you, Chairman Wells and members of the committee, for allowing our voices to be heard this morning.  My name is Rabbi Gilah Langner and I am speaking today on behalf of Jews United for Justice, a DC-area organization that brings together the Jewish community to advocate for social and economic justice on local issues.

I urge you today to take immediate action on the significant and growing challenge of homelessness in our city.  With the recent economic downturn, the demand for shelter has increased, and DC shelters are not keeping up with demand. Family homelessness has grown a staggering 25% in the last year.  Overcrowding in shelters is a major reason why many homeless people land up sleeping on sidewalks, vulnerable to violent crime and exacerbating existing health problems. 

Jewish tradition for thousands of years has taught that the community has a primary obligation to provide each individual with what is essential for a dignified life, first and foremost including safe shelter.  One of our legal texts (Sefer Hasidim) notes, "If a community lacks a place of worship and a shelter for the poor, it is first obligated to build a shelter for the poor."  One cannot pray for God's compassion until one has acted compassionately as a community. 

Our local government can and should bear responsibility to guarantee that all DC residents have a safe and secure place to sleep.

Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family including...housing."  In December 2008, the DC city council declared Washington, DC a Human Rights City-the first in the United States.

I am asking that you uphold your declaration that DC is a Human Rights City by taking the following steps to respond to this crisis:

• Increasing homeless assistance funds to ensure no one is without a safe, adequate, and appropriate night-time residence on any given night.
• Tracking the unmet demand for shelter to determine the adequate number of beds needed.
• Improving and monitoring shelter conditions more closely so that individuals are treated with their basic human dignity and will prefer shelter beds to the street.
• Maintaining an adequate emergency shelter safety net while moving toward a housing first approach to ending homelessness.

As a city, we have the opportunity to be a leader in developing strategies to combat homelessness.  But we must not cause harm to our residents in the process.   Solving the budget crisis at the cost of our residents' safety and well being is simply unacceptable.

Thank you for your time and consideration.