A spokesperson for the D.C. Superior Court released a statement to the Washington Blade on Jan. 11 disputing claims by the local organization Empowering the Transgender Community, known as ETC, that it was forced to suspend operation of its temporary emergency housing facility for LGBTQ victims of violent crime because the court reneged on a promise to send enough residents to financially sustain the facility.

ETC announced in March of 2022 that it had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the D.C. court’s Crime Victims Compensation Program to provide temporary emergency housing specifically for LGBTQ crime victims for up to 30 days through an arrangement with the courts.

Earline Budd, ETC’s executive director, said ETC had rented a small apartment building to operate a housing facility that she said last March could accommodate up to 26 individuals or a smaller group of families for the crime victims program. Court officials have since said the number was reduced to 22 because a few of the apartments in the building would be used for ETC staff offices.

The location of the facility had to remain confidential, Budd said, as part of the agreement with the courts to ensure the safety of its residents.

But in December Budd informed the Blade that ETC had to suspend its operation of the housing facility in November because the court did not provide enough tenants to financially sustain the facility. Budd said the director of the Crime Victims Compensation Program, Blanche Reese, told her and others during a visit to the ETC facility last March that the program expected to fill the facility to its capacity with crime victim residents.

Budd said the far fewer than expected residents sent to the ETC facility by the court created a financial shortfall when the overhead costs of renting the building and paying staff to operate the program exceeded the reimbursement payments they received from the court.

“The court never promised ETC a specific number of claimants to be housed by this provider,” said Douglas Buchanan, director of Media and Public Relations for the D.C. Courts, in a statement to the Blade.

Buchanan pointed to the four-page Memorandum of Understanding between ETC and the courts, which Buchanan sent to the Blade. The document, which was signed by Budd on Feb. 15 2022, makes no mention of the number of “victim/claimants” the court would send to the ETC facility.

The MOU states that the reimbursement by the Crime Victims Compensation Program (CVCP) to ETC “for each emergency housing stay is limited to a period of 30 days at the rate of $100.00 per day.”

The MOU states that CVCP would reimburse ETC for the costs of food if food is provided to the victim/claimants. “The amount shall not exceed $100.00 per week up to a total of $400.00,” the MOU says.

Buchanan also provided the Blade with comments from Crime Victims Compensation Program Director Blanche Reese, regarding Budd’s claim that Reese made a verbal promise to send enough tenants to fill the ETC facility to capacity.

“The managers were told that the facility would probably stay full because the facility was so beautiful and some of the other facilities were not as nice,” Reese said. “My statement was taken out of context,” Reese added. “They were also informed of how placement is decided. For example, if a crime happened in S.E. (where the facility is located) we would try to place the claimant away from the crime location, unless the claimant signed a disclaimer.”

According to Reese, “Ultimately, the claimant makes the decision if they want to stay at the facility that CVCP suggests…ETC was never promised a specific number of claimants. They were told that it would vary.”

Budd said ETC’s financial problems were heightened when the court program failed to send its reimbursement payments on time, sometimes sending them a month or two after they were due.

In his statement to the Blade, Buchanan said the delays in reimbursement payments were caused by ETC submitting inaccurate invoices. The MOU calls for ETC to provide invoices related to the claimants who stayed at the ETC facility.

“In the beginning, the delay in payments were due to inaccurate invoices submitted by ETC,” Buchanan said. “The CVCP director and accounting officer had a meeting with the [ETC] board to explain the process and clear up any discrepancies,” he said. “It was at that time the ETC board authorized the CVCP to correct any inaccurate invoices submitted and process the payments to address the delay in processing payments.”

In response to concerns raised by ETC that the court also didn’t fully reimburse ETC for the cost of food for crime victims and their family members sent to the facility, Buchanan said ETC was aware of restrictions by “food caps” set by the CVCP rules

In her statement sent to the Blade by Buchanan, Reese said the court “had no idea that ETC relied on the CVCP as their sole source of funding.” Reese said she was contacted by the attorney representing the ETC organization asking for a meeting with her to discuss the group’s finances.

“It was at this meeting that they informed me that the ETC board had made a decision to temporarily cease providing housing because of accounting issues,” Reese said. “At this meeting we also discussed staffing concerns because I was informed that the entire staff had resigned,” said Reese. “We were supposed to revisit the viability of the ETC organization in January 2023.”

Budd has said staffing issues surfaced when the lower reimbursement of funds from the court due to fewer residents than expected caused a shortfall in funds preventing ETC from paying some of its staff and paying the rent for the building.

She said ETC remained hopeful that it could reopen the emergency housing facility for the crime victims program if its arrangement with the court could be revised. She said ETC was also in discussion with the D.C. Department of Human Services over the possibility that the ETC facility could be used as a low-barrier shelter for homeless people.

Budd said that due to the privacy restrictions required for the crime victims program, she didn’t think the ETC building could be used for both crime victim residents and homeless residents at the same time.

But in his statement to the Blade, Buchanan said, “The decision to use the facility for other purposes would totally be up to the ETC executive director and board.”

Buchanan said the court would also like to revisit its relationship with ETC, although he said the ETC attorney or ETC board members had not contacted the CVCP about resuming the program as of earlier this week.

“We are looking forward to ironing some things out and we are optimistic that the courts and ETC are going to get together in the coming months in an effort to try to hammer out some of these issues and try to pave a path forward that benefits those that ETC and the DC Courts serve,” he said.

Budd and the ETC attorney, Charles Ross, couldn’t immediately be reached to get their reaction to the statements sent to the Blade this week from Buchanan and CVCP Director Blanche Reese.

Buchanan sent a copy of an email that attorney Ross sent to Buchanan this week in which Ross said he would not be responding to the Blade’s request for comment at  this time.