Inside the day center. Image by MOYA Design Partners.

People experiencing homelessness often have no place to go during the day, and figuring out where to find a meal, get an ID card, do laundry, and get started on the journey to finding a home takes a lot of effort and coordination. Day centers can help. They provide a safe and comfortable place to hang out when shelters are closed, and offer a variety of vital services in one location.

What do day centers do?

In February of this year, the Downtown DC Business Improvement District opened a day services center in the basement of New York Presbyterian Church, two blocks from Metro Center. The sleek facility provides guests with amenities like showers, laundry, haircuts, clothes, medical support, legal support, computer access, a needle exchange, employment counseling, and therapy for those that need it.

Neil Albert, the CEO of the Downtown DC BID, says the motivation behind the center is simple—it’s meant to “take someone from homelessness to being housed.” So far, the center is doing what Albert says he wants it to do. According to Nabavi Oliver, the BID’s director of administration, the center has already housed 48 people since their doors opened to the public nine months ago.

At the heart of the center’s strategy is serving as a single point of access to a wide range of services and amenities. There are counselors and case managers on site who help guests apply for benefits, seek employment, and — most importantly — find safe and stable housing. There are comfortable chairs and couches and places to socialize. There are even temporary tops and bottoms people can wear while they sit around and wait to have their clothes washed.

Computer lab. Image by MOYA Design Partners.

Albert says the center’s wraparound services are important because many people who are experiencing homelessness struggle to navigate multiple competing needs. By centralizing resources in one location, Albert says, the center makes it easier to connect their guests with the services they need.

The center is supported by partnerships with a host of local organizations, including the DC Public Library, the Department of Motor Vehicles, Pathways to Housing, Catholic Charities (which provides the meal service), Unity Health Care, the Department of Health, the Economic Security Administration, the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, the Department of Employment Services, HIPs, and the Department of Human Services. These partners and teams of regular volunteers make the work at the center possible, Albert says.

What do people experiencing homelessness think?

On a recent visit to the center, I talked with Vince Watts, an unsheltered DC resident who likened the facility to a “day spa.” He says the showers and bathrooms are “clean,” and pointing to a stack of freshly laundered clothes stuffed inside his backpack, said he had just finished doing his laundry.

“No one is trashing the place,” Watts added. In his experience, guests at the center treat the spaces with care. However, Watts said he felt the place was a little claustrophobic because of the sheer number of guests.

Albert says the center opened with the expectation they would receive 100 daily guests. In actuality, the center averages about 175 to 200 guests per day. This is an issue the Downtown BID is working on, one that Albert says keeps him “up at night.” He says the BID is in the process of exploring options for expansion, and added that he didn’t think they initially “understood the gravity of the situation.”

Watts said that he thinks the overall quality of the services offered by the center could be better, but acknowledged he would be hard-pressed to find a better place. “If you live in a big city, you’ll never find any place like this,” Watts, who has spent time in Chicago and Detroit, explained.

Front desk area. Image by MOYA Design Partners.

Oliver said designers from Moya Design Partners carefully considered how to make this space — a windowless basement inside a church — feel warm and welcoming. Rows of hanging plants float over the dining area, and poets speak to guests from lines printed atop serene wallpapered garden scenes:

“Every soul is to be cherished, every flower is to bloom” by Alice Walker

“There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met” by W.B. Yeats

Could this be replicated elsewhere?

Downtown DC is not the only area where people experiencing homelessness need services. According to Albert, the day center model is “needed in other parts of the city, particularly in areas that have a high concentration of people experiencing homelessness normally,” and pointed to NoMa and Georgetown.

In the NoMa neighborhood, for example, there’s been a lot of debate about what to do with the people who shelter under the underpass on First Street NE. The NoMa BID published an open letter this summer advocating for stricter enforcement of the city’s encampment laws and the establishment of “pedestrian-safe passage zones.” It also criticized what they called the “public dialogue around ‘solutions’ [that] has focused almost exclusively on the provision of more affordable housing.”

When contacted for comment about the possibility of opening a day center in the area, NoMa BID President Robin-Eve Jasper said through a spokesperson that they decline to discuss subjects “with regard to the city’s homeless or the encampments in NoMa.”

There are existing services for people experiencing homelessness in those neighborhoods. For example, the Father McKenna Center in NoMa provides day services for men experiencing homelessness, including meals, showers, and a wide array of counseling and case management support. (Attendance at a support group meeting, however, is required for those seeking mid-day meals.) Similarly, the Georgetown Ministry Center has a clubhouse drop-in center equipped with showers, case management, and food.

Funding is the main challenge for any organization seeking to establish a comprehensive center like the one downtown. According to Albert, the Downtown Day Services Center costs $2.5 million dollars annually to run, and $2 million dollars of that comes from a grant from the DC government. The remaining amount is raised by the center itself under a charitable trust established by the Downtown DC BID.

In light of their recent success and the ongoing need, the Downtown Day Services center is seeking to add more mental health and dental care. They are also seeking to expand their hours to Saturdays starting in January pending approval from their landlord, the New York Presbyterian Church. If you’re interested in volunteering, you can find more information here.