When DC mayor Muriel Bowser announced she’d close the DC General homeless shelter and replace it with smaller shelters in all of DC’s wards, everyone knew there’d be pushback. Now it’s ratcheted up in the form of a slick video. But the video makes a point that could equally apply to many other, less worthy actions too. So why now?

Not only does this video have fancy production values, the group behind it, the anonymous “DC Residents for Responsible Government,” also paid for it to be a sponsored post on Facebook and run as an ad before YouTube videos, and possibly other places as well.

The video highlights the widely-reported facts that the replacement homeless shelters involve building on land which in many cases is owned by big donors to the Bowser campaign, and at seemingly unnecessarily high prices.

This isn’t a non-issue, and the fact that the costs seem so high and the outcome so favorable to certain donors has clearly hamstrung this otherwise-worthy initiative. It’s left many supportive activists frustrated. They’d absolutely expected well-heeled neighbors of many shelters to fight against the idea — the recent HBO minisieries Show Me a Hero depicted exactly how communities react to this kind of thing. But they didn’t expect to have to defend such questionable economics, too.

Still, this won’t be the first time DC spends more than might be necessary on an economic development deal. Yet people only will spend the money to create a glossy animated video when we’re talking about a deal that also challenges exclusivity in some parts of the city. DC Jobs with Justice pointed this out in a series of tweets:

(If you want to learn more about some of these controversies, we have numerous articles on the Wizards arena in Ward 8, including an op-ed by Elissa Silverman; the LivingSocial tax break from 2012; and RFK Stadium many many times.)

This debate is reminiscent of ones in the world of transit as well. Many people rightly point out that transit projects are often more expensive than elsewhere in the world. It’s right to ask how they can be built more cheaply. That said, road projects are also comparably expensive. If people ignore transit’s cost, then we won’t get much transit. But if pundits only talk about transit projects’ cost and not road projects too, they’re putting transit at an even greater disadvantage.

DC needs to be fiscally responsible in all its economic development deals. But closing DC General and putting shelters all across the city is also an important goal. Let’s hope the anonymous people opposing the shelters do a snazzy video if DC tries to give a sweetheart deal for a new football stadium which will only move a team a couple of miles. Chances are they won’t.

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Tagged: dc, homelessness, muriel bowser, poverty

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.