Reagan Vowed to Push Renovation of Center : Delay in Housing for Homeless Assailed

Mitch Snyder, an advocate for the nation’s homeless, drew nationwide attention last November when his 51-day hunger strike extracted a promise from President Reagan to renovate an abandoned building in Washington for about 800 homeless people.

Almost six months later, Snyder complained Thursday, the government still has not begun work on the project, which he had envisioned as a national model for shelters.

“It’s inconceivable to me that a President’s agreement will not hold,” said Snyder, spokesman for the Community for Creative Non-Violence, a nonprofit group that operates the shelter. He warned that it may soon be too late to complete work on the dilapidated facility by winter.

Snyder’s Outrage

“It’s almost at the point when, given what has to happen can’t happen,” he said. “If they (government officials) are not willing to do the work, they’ve lied to us--and the President’s word is worthless.”

Snyder’s outrage recalled the intense anger surrounding his dramatic fast last year, when he lost more than 60 pounds and was hospitalized in serious condition on the day Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret M. Heckler telephoned to say that Reagan had personally approved spending up to $5 million on the shelter.

The activist’s complaints, which he said will escalate unless the government acts, come as cities across the nation seek ways of sheltering an increasing number of homeless people, and they focus attention on the difficulty of resolving the problem--even when the President himself becomes personally involved.

Called ‘a Rat Hole’

The three-story, 185,000-square-foot building, which Snyder describes as “a rat hole,” was supposed to be transformed into a livable home for men and women, providing under one roof a variety of social services, including food stamps, counseling and medical care. Snyder said that students at the University of the District of Columbia have promised to help run the shelter.

A federal task force on food and shelter for the homeless was formed, and, using a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Conrad Levenson Architects & Planners, a New York firm, drew up renovation plans for Snyder’s organization.

“We waited and we waited and we waited,” Snyder said, adding that after a half dozen meetings with the task force, “I called and asked, ‘What’s going on?”’

‘Nobody’s Stonewalling’

Harvey Vieth, a Health and Human Services official who is chairman of the task force, said the government does not intend to renege on the agreement but he said he and Snyder need to discuss details of the plan.

“Nobody’s stonewalling,” he said. “We’re trying to get on with it.”

Several sticking points apparently have developed, however. The Levenson renovation plan indicates a need for $10 million instead of the $5 million first mentioned last year and advocates of the shelter assert that the government refuses to say where the money will come from because it fears a rash of aid requests from other cities.

Vieth said the source of funding is “something we have to sit down and talk about. We have to be protective of the taxpayers’ money.”

Experts Tell Concern

Also, Vieth said that some experts on shelters have expressed concern that 800 persons may be too many for one shelter and that the homeless population would be more manageable if spread out among several smaller facilities.

Meanwhile, according to Snyder and his supporters, time is running out on the homeless.

Levenson, the architect, said he has presented Vieth with a renovation timetable, which called for basement demolition to begin next Wednesday. He said the project can be completed in time for winter “but the problem is whether the government can gear up in time.”