Dorms for the homeless

 The corona virus pandemic has disrupted many aspects of life in D.C, businesses are closed, travel is restricted, and the university students have been sent home. The mayor has issued a stay at home order to prevent the spread of the corona virus. Stay at home orders are a necessary and effective step to limit the spread and cost of the virus. However, they leave behind those who are without homes to shelter in. In addition, many homeless shelters have struggled to accomodate the need for social distancing, and cities have struggled to find alternatives. Many cities forged agreements with their now empty hotels to provide housing for the homeless, giving them someplace to stay and avoiding the cramped conditions that allowed the corona virus to spread rapidly in homeless shelters. However, hotels are still an imperfect venue for social distancing given that their rooms do not have kitchens or eating areas. This necessitates residents to leave their rooms and interact with others frequently in order to get food. There is also difficulty in assembling enough capacity to house the 6,500 or so homeless people in the district.     
A better alternative would be to use the now vacant college dorms in D.C. The city and George Washington University should forge an agreement to make use of the now vacant  dorms at GW and other D.C schools to house the homeless. The dorms at GW and other now closed universities would provide a better way to house this vulnerable population. These dorms would not need to be filled to capacity and could instead each house 1 individual or family. At GW alone there are more than 1200 dorm units which include kitchens and eating areas, which would allow residents to social distance more effectively. If the district could forge such agreements with all of the 19 colleges and universities they should be more than able to house their homeless until the crisis is over. The Universities could rent out these rooms to the city at their upkeep cost and recoup some of the red ink the pandemic has caused, and the city could provide a safe residence for their vulnerable homeless population within blocks of the essential services they rely upon.