nimby

So it's getting warmer, the conventioneers are flooding the town (the new Convention Center is only 6 blocks to my East--hotels around Thomas Circle are just around the corner), and now when I leave my building I might be affronted by a woman wearing a bright pink fishnet mini and thong ... yep, the prostitutes are back. When I first moved to Logan circle I saw them twice: once while walking home from work and another time going to work. Generally people feel very strongly about prostitution one way or the other or feel like it's not a big deal.

Well in general this is the way I feel about it: once a friend of mine told me she often gives money to homeless people, after I described a story about my homeless person encounter:
Upon reaching for the keys in my building, a man approached me, begging for money so he could pay the $3 fee to get a bed in the homeless shelter (less than a block away from me). Feeling reluctant and realizing many of these guys are great actors, I still gave him the remaining amount for him to get a bed ... I saw him run off the opposite direction from the shelter, towards the liquor stores on 11th St.
My friend told me if she was homeless she would be an alcoholic too and it's fine to give them money to help with their addiction because she could afford to spare a little change. Well that was was some wacked up justification if I ever heard one. I said 1) you are a suburbanite, these guys are my neighbors ... and frankly I don't want to step over their passed out forms when I'm walking home from work, 2) nor do I want my neighborhood to go back to being trashy and have the investment in my home dip down 3) I don't want them getting so addicted that they have to resort to crime. It's my neighborhood, I care about it, don't pretend you care about homeless people by giving them money.

I think that's the way some people in my condo feel about prostitutes. They don't necessarily always attract the conventioneers ... if anything they likely attract the sleazier types who may indulge in a little crime besides sex offenses. I don't know the statistics or correlation if its true, but I would rather err on the safe side. When I bought my condo, my parent's freaked because of its proximity to 14th St. which to them over 25 years ago was DC's notorious red light district. Prostitutes are heavily ingrained in Logan Circle's history, and countless battles between council members, advocates, and law enforcement confirm that. Anyway it's an interesting problem that people in my building have started recording to submit to law enforcement et al.