- Homeless encampments have significantly increased in Washington, D.C., in the past two year – a trend being attributed in part to the city and federal government lifting enforcement measures during the pandemic, which resulted in homeless people opting to live outside instead of in more closely confined shelters.
- A New York Post tour of the district’s major tourist areas last week found at least 35 vagrants in residence at a National Park Service site two blocks from the White House; more than 20 in the green spaces surrounding the State Department complex; and five across the street from the infamous Watergate Hotel.
- The sites reportedly accounted for less than 5 percent of the estimated 120 tent cities in Washington D.C.
- “It’s wicked and it’s medieval,” longtime resident Robert Westover told the newspaper. “We’re really letting people suffer on the street like animals? Somehow that’s progressive?”
