This article is part of The Hatchet’s 2025 contribution to the D.C. Homeless Crisis Reporting Project in collaboration with other local newsrooms. The collective works will be published throughout the week at streetsensemedia.org/hcrp_year/2025/.
As the city moves to increase the number of shelter beds available to the District’s homeless residents, both in response to President Donald Trump’s D.C. takeover and as part of a broader four-year plan, Foggy Bottom’s local housing refuge isn’t yet prepared to up its capacity.
D.C. officials opened the Aston — the District’s first noncongregate housing program — in November 2024 on New Hampshire Avenue in a former GW dorm with a starting capacity of 50 tenants, which officials raised to 100 in January, though it has the space for 90 additional beds. Local advocates have called on D.C. officials to utilize all available beds at The Aston as the Trump administration have ratcheted up unhoused encampment sweeps this year, and shelters around the District have bolstered capacity in response to federal pressure on encampments, particularly after Trump federalized D.C.’s police force in August.
The Aston has remained close to its 100-resident capacity with an average of 91 tenants in its third quarter, according to a quarterly progress report officials released in August.
Aston Division Director Jeremy Jones said the facility requires additional resources from the city to complete building renovations and hire additional staff in order to raise resident capacity. The Hatchet toured The Aston on Friday with the facility’s management and saw that some common areas and units were unfinished or under construction.
Jones said ongoing construction has prevented residents from moving into 23 beds in rooms on The Aston’s first floor, which can accommodate people with mobility issues. But he said leaving some rooms vacant gives the facility flexibility to welcome residents who do not wish to or cannot live safely with a roommate.
“For any program when you’re putting people into rooms, and they don’t know each other, there’s always that level of unknown,” Jones said. “But I think having the proper staff that can handle those situations is just as important.”
The Foggy Bottom and West End Advisory Neighborhood Commission, which includes The Aston, passed a resolution in June calling on Ward 2 D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto to express support to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser for increasing the shelter’s resident cap from 100 to 190, staggering the uptick with an intermediate target of 150.
The resolution cited smooth operations at the shelter, intensified clearings and mounting pressure from Trump to eliminate encampments. It came after Trump’s March executive order calling on the National Park Service to promptly remove “homeless or vagrant encampments” on D.C.’s federal land, which caused local officials to accelerate clearings.
The calls to raise The Aston’s capacity also come as the Trump administration has partially used homelessness in the District as justification for his takeover of the city starting in August, saying homeless residents in the city needed to move out “immediately.” The move prompted the District to add more than 100 shelter beds, and city officials said 80 additional residents accepted shelter during the surge in clearings in August and September.
“We have shelter space available for anyone who needs it,” Bowser said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, in August.
Jones said facility admissions increased more in January than when Trump declared people without housing should leave the District or face eviction and imprisonment in August.
To raise The Aston’s capacity, the facility’s management must get approval from Pinto because the July 2023 agreement Pinto signed, allowing the D.C. Council to greenlight the shelter’s conversion from a GW dorm to a city-operated housing facility, sets a maximum capacity at 100 residents.
Jones said he has not heard from Pinto’s office about raising the cap but said any increase should be done gradually to avoid overwhelming the facility. At a June ANC meeting, a representative for Pinto said the councilmember is looking to continue working toward the 100-person threshold to ensure continued smooth operations.
Pinto did not return a request for comment.
The Aston’s opening marked one of the first steps in the city’s larger plan to open six homeless shelters through 2028, which will ultimately add more than 500 beds for unhoused residents. D.C. plans to open its second-ever bridge housing model this fall at 25 E Street, near Union Station, adding 190 beds.
Jones also said The Aston’s multi-purpose dining area is not large enough to accommodate 190 residents but that the shelter’s management plans to remove a wall separating the dining area from an office, increasing its size, though the plan lacks a timeline. He said The Aston’s occupancy peaked at 93 participants and will likely never stay at 100 due to a stream of residents exiting into long-term housing.
2A09 ANC Commissioner Sean Youngstone, who introduced the June resolution to up The Aston’s capacity, said it is “unfortunate” that the shelter is not utilizing all of its beds and that there is no mechanism for local bodies like the ANC to increase the cap.
“Requiring that The Aston remain forever half full is a tragic waste of district resources at a time where high-quality shelter beds are desperately needed and the district is strapped for cash,” Youngstone said in an email.
Youngstone said Pinto has not shown any willingness to work with local advocacy groups on the issue of raising the capacity and is not prioritizing the needs of the District’s most vulnerable residents.
“She has refused to engage on this issue, saying that she wants to see the Aston succeed with lower numbers of residents first,” Youngstone said. “However, she has not shown any willingness to help create concrete benchmarks which, upon being met, would permit the cap to be raised.”
2A08 Commissioner Jim Malec, who co-chaired the CAT at the time, abstained from the June ANC vote to increase the cap. He said in an email that The Aston has exceeded expectations but raising the capacity would strain resources.
“Nearly doubling its capacity would increase strain on the building, program staff, and community infrastructure,” Malec said in an email.
He said the current 100-resident cap leaves about 50 percent of the facility’s maximum of 190 beds unused, and the ANC should not have agreed to it, but he thinks community input and discussions with District leaders are necessary before reneging.
Malec resigned from the CAT, the local body overseeing The Aston’s local engagement and conversion, but not the ANC, the week after the ANC approved the resolution, saying the ANC deserves a representative aligned with its desire to lift the cap.
“I’m not interested in being part of a bait and switch, or in governing with an ‘ends justify the means’ philosophy,” Malec said. “When you make a promise, you keep it.”
