Muriel Elizabeth Bowser (born August 2, 1972) is an American politician serving as the eighth Mayor of the District of Columbia since 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, she previously represented Ward 4 as a member of the Council of the District of Columbia from 2007 to 2015. She is the second female Mayor of the District of Columbia after Sharon Pratt, and the first woman to be reelected to that position.
Bowser cuts ribbon on first D.C. homeless shelter for LGBTQ adults
Advocates and city officials gathered in Marshall Heights on Thursday to celebrate the opening of the D.C.’s first shelter for homeless LGBTQ adults.
Mayor Muriel Bowser and officials from the D.C. Department of Human Services cut the ribbon to the shelter located at 400 50th St., S.E.
When it opens in August, the shelter will be able to house about 40 people, Bowser said. The building previously served as a family shelter but is being converted as more shelters designated for families open up in D.C., the mayor’s office said in a statement. “People experience homelessness differently, for different reasons and in different ways.
People avoid homeless shelters also for a multitude of reasons,” Bowser said at the ceremony outside the facility. “We know and we have seen it in the creation of our small dignified family shelters, that when we get shelter right, people will come into shelter.” In DC, 18 percent of the unsheltered population and 7 percent of the sheltered population identify as LGBTQ, Department of Human Services Director Laura Green Zeilinger said in her remarks.
