The Central Union Mission is caught up in a battle over its planned move that could jeopardize the future of the 122-year-old rescue mission, its leader said Thursday.
After years of searching for a new property and having outgrown its home at 14th and R streets in Northwest, the mission found a location to open a new, 60,000-square-foot location at 3510 Georgia Ave., Executive Director David Treadwell said. The mission has a contract to then sell its former location, once a 1930s-era automobile dealership, to the developer of the Georgia Avenue location, Treadwell said.
But residents around the new Georgia Avenue spot, bordering Columbia Heights and Petworth, have complained. And proposed new zoning regulations could make it more difficult to open, including a regulation that wouldforce organizations that want to construct buildings larger than 12,000 square feet to go through a number of public hearings, Treadwell said.
Treadwell said he likes to think that the mission, which is faith-based, was a part of 14th Street’s revitalization. The current facility has about 130 beds, some of which are used to support families in transition, including battered women. It also offers drug rehabilitation programs and summer camps for children. Treadwell said it does not contribute greatly to loitering, and emergency overnight homeless residents are locked in at night.
"When we moved here in 1982, it was the sin capital of the nation’s capital," Treadwell said. "We’ve watched all of that change."
The mission’s new location, which would have between 100 and 170 beds, would be next to a liquor store and down the street from an adult exotic dance club as well as a new school, Treadwell said. Gentrification’s reach has spread to the area, though it still remains largely untouched.
"It is an area that we’d like to help improve," Treadwell said.
Ward 1 Council Member Jim Graham has said he opposes the move, not because he doesn’t want the mission in his ward — it is currently in Ward 2 — but because he thinks the move is not necessary.
"They have a wonderful location," Graham said. "They also have the ability in that location to improve their programs. Rather than upsetting everyone on lower Georgia Avenue, why don’t they stay where they are."
Treadwell said he’s sought community input. He doesn’t know if the new zoning is targeted against the mission.
"We’ll have to wait and see on that," Treadwell said. "That’s not my world. My world is to serve my community and not get into zoning fights."
