OLIVE BRANCH COMMUNITY home

Members of the D.C. Council called yesterday for Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D)
to appoint a homelessness czar to coordinate the work of multiple agencies
responsible for assisting homeless adults and families.

"At this point we've had such a splintering of services that nobody is
ultimately responsible," said David A. Catania (R-At Large), a member of the
council's Committee on Human Services.

The committee yesterday approved a report, prepared by Chairman Sandy Allen
(D-Ward 8), that urges the city to repair emergency shelters and improve
bilingual services and calls on the mayor to improve coordination of an
anti-hypothermia plan he aproved in October. One homeless man has died of
hypothermia this winter.

Lynn C. French, an aide to Deputy Mayor Carolyn N. Graham, said the city
reopened a set of trailers at Fourth and L streets NW Sunday night as an
overflow shelter for homeless men.

The 150 beds at the Gale School, the main hypothermia shelter for homeless men,
located near Union Station, have been full as the temperature has dropped.

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