District officials cleared two unhoused encampments in Foggy Bottom last week, evicting about six people under a new protocol outreach leaders say exacerbates the already disruptive impact of the sweeps on people experiencing homelessness.
Employees from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services and the D.C. Department of Public Works carried out evictions at 23rd and E streets and the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway’s L Street exit, placing former residents’ tents in trash compactors. The evictions follow a series of escalating sweeps in Foggy Bottom, driven by federal policy shifts that culminated in President Donald Trump’s March 28 “Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful” executive order calling for the National Park Service to promptly remove “homeless or vagrant encampments” on D.C.’s federal land.
Local mutual-aid organizations said Trump’s push for more frequent evictions overburdens organizations, causing them to lose track of unhoused residents while increasing demand for supplies, like tents and tarps.
A DMHHS web page lists both locations as requiring “enforcement” to “remain clear” because of “safety concerns.” High-speed roads — Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway and the E Street Expressway — bordered each encampment. Officials have cited risks from falling tree branches and pedestrians entering the roadway as reasons for conducting similar enforcement actions at encampments along roadways but did not explain either eviction in May.
Anna Parse Johnson — who works for Remora House, a Foggy Bottom mutual-aid group — said aid distributors “lose contact” with people during each eviction and some unhoused people have been evicted upward of five times in the last month. Each eviction requires “new tents” and “crucial supplies,” Johnson said.
Johnson said people who distribute food to members of the Foggy Bottom unhoused community have seen the number of people on weekly aid distribution routes, which include encampments, drop from about 20 to seven as increased evictions strain case workers’ ability to know where their clients will be and displace aid recipients from expected locations.
Rather than providing relief, Johnson said encampment clearings “disrupt community” and make it more difficult for unhoused residents to “stay alive.”
DMHHS officials did not respond to a request for comment about the nature and reason for the May evictions or revisions to the engagement protocol.
DPW employees on May 8 at 10:20 a.m. began placing at least three tents at an encampment near the L Street exit from Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway in a trash truck before crushing it.
Metropolitan Police Department officers arrived four minutes past 10 a.m. and accompanied DPW and DMHHS leaders observing the employees.
An outreach employee from Miriam’s Kitchen, a local nonprofit working to end chronic homelessness in D.C., said several unhoused individuals evacuated ahead of the eviction. By 10 a.m. about three people remained in the encampment at Rock Creek Potomac Parkway.
DPW employees on May 7 removed one tent at around 10 a.m. from the narrow sidewalk abutting the sunken Expressway entrance and exit ramps across from the Pan American Health Organization in what the District said was a “full cleanup.”
The tent was the last in the immediate vicinity of 23rd and E streets after Mayor Muriel Bowser ordered evictions two months earlier on March 6 in the grassy area directly along the Expressway ramps.
District officials evicted five people at the Expressway two days after Trump said in a March 5 Truth Social post he “notified” Bowser to clean up “unsightly” encampments in front of the State Department.
Bowser the morning after Trump’s post said plans to conduct a sweep at the Expressway predated his demand. She said she had discussed the encampments with Trump’s staff but denied that the administration ordered her office to “do anything,” characterizing Trump’s call as a “notice.”
Officials provided a 24-hour notice, defying protocol in place at the time requiring D.C. Department of Transportation to post signs alerting residents of the planned eviction at least two weeks ahead of time.
Web archives show between March 7 and 21, DMHHS changed the link directing to the protocol from a 2019 document to a new 2025 document. The new protocol shortens the length of time before the eviction the agency shall provide from 14 days to seven days and eliminates a direction to agencies to provide 14 days for residents of the encampment to voluntarily leave.
2A08 Commissioner Jim Malec said Sunday that the Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commission was not involved in the process of revising the engagement protocol.
Foggy Bottom mutual-aid organization Remora House Director of Communications Shannon Clark said the policy change is “emblematic” of “attacks” on the unhoused community. She said shorter notice times make it difficult for unhoused people to plan their next move.
“Evictions always threaten people’s ability to keep necessary survival supplies,” Clark said. “Tents, blankets, sleeping bags, as well as personal documents, medication, etc.”
Clark also said evictions threaten people’s ability to access housing services through caseworkers and decreasing the notice time “heightens” the impact.
