The DowntownDC BID’s Homeless Services department has performed incredible feats over the years, identifying and reconnecting thousands of homeless individuals to family and service providers and placing dozens more in permanent supportive housing. Most of these stellar accomplishments are because of the relentless and stellar work of Chet Grey, who, after 10 years, has retired as the BID’s homeless services director. Witty, wise and blunt, the former Navy CDR Reserve Chaplain had a way with chronically homeless individuals that has paid tremendous dividends for the men and women who have made a home on Downtown streets.
Grey, along with Jonathan Ward, clinical director of the BID’s Downtown Homeless Services Team—the on-the-street professionals who engage with homeless individuals every day where they are in the community to build rapport and trust and connect them to support services and housing—have served as a sort of Homeless Dynamic Duo, the sturdy pillars on which the Homeless Services program has been built. Ward has also left the BID, to become director of mobile crisis services under the DC Department of Mental Health’s (DMH) Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program (CPEP), located on the grounds of DC General. We are excited for Ward and extremely thankful to Grey.
“Chet has been a major change agent in the city’s approach to homelessness, but you might never know that because he accomplishes his goals in the most unassuming, low key and self-deprecating manner,” says Nan Roman, president and chief executive officer of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. “Chet built a bridge between homeless people and the downtown business community, and the building blocks of that bridge were real solutions.”
Grey had extensive experience advocating for people without homes before joining the BID in 2002. Once here, he became a tremendous asset, serving on former Mayor Anthony William’s Continuum of Care Planning Committee, the forerunner to the city’s Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH); partnering with public and private agencies; advocating and strategizing tirelessly on behalf of the homeless; and shifting the BID’s focus toward Housing First, a progressive approach to end chronic homelessness.
Ward worked for the BID eight years, beginning as director of the Downtown Services Center (DSC), which the BID set up and funded at First Congregational United Church of Christ (UCC) on 10th and G streets. (The Center brought together various DC non-profit organizations to assist the homeless but closed in 2007 after the church decided to demolish its building to construct a new church and office building.) Following DSC’s closure, Ward became clinical director of the BID’s Homeless Services Team. Like Grey, his accomplishments are many, including developing and implementing a mental health status exam for a specialized team of SAMs—the Homeless Outreach Service Team (HOST)—to use when working with homeless individuals and training Downtown security providers on outreach and mental health.
While Grey and Ward are gone, their work will continue, as the homeless program is now under the domain of David Kamperin, the BID’s public space management director. So far, he has implemented a quarterly homeless count and will carry on work to identify and target high density homeless population areas and address random park feeding programs that often create chaos and much uncollected trash.