Cross-Posted from DC Independent Media Center and Direct Action News by Luke
On the 27th of February, Ms Bertina Jones showed up at the DC offices of Freddie Mac, backed up by Occupy our Homes, Rev Hagler, and the same Catholic contingent that took the “Golden Bull” to Congress. By the end of ther day, Freddie Mac had abandoned their planned foreclosure of Ms Jone’s home, agreeing to work with her on a loan modification instead. Direct Action gets the goods!
At the scene, building security locked op the doors as protesters gathered, and refused to admit Bertina Jones or Rev Hagler. They directed those who had business with any of the building’s many tenants to a side entrance, only to be rapidly discovered. Occupy then corked up the loading dock entrance with a detachment from the main rally and the entire building was put on lockdown according to one witness!
Facing the possiblity of a protected siege of the building and ALL of its tenanty by Occupy, Freddie Mac had no choice but to agree to admit Ms Bertina Jones and Reverend Hagler and accept their letter. Tbey refused to make any promises about cancelling the planned and probably illegal foreclosure on her home, but are clearly feeling the pressure after being forced to admit Bertina to their office.
Later that same day, Freddie Mac threw in the towel, the foreclosure is off! Sorry racist bankers, at least one Black woman will keep her home in PG County today!
So, Empower DC went to Mayor Gray’s One City Citizen Summit last Saturday. In the mayor’s invitation to the residents of the District of Columbia, he described the summit as “a frank and open conversation about what needs to be done to create Washington, DC as One City.” He also promised that we would have the opportunity to:
• Learn about current efforts to grow our economy, improve our schools, create more jobs, and other initiatives underway to move our city forward
• Discuss some of the biggest challenges that prevent Washington from becoming truly One City
• Share your views in small group discussions and listen to neighbors from every part of the District
• Vote on specific priorities for action in the coming year
• Brainstorm new ideas about how the D.C. Government can work more effectively with its citizens
• Identify ways you can be more involved in future efforts to create a more unified city that works for everyone
In keeping with those lofty goals, Empower DC put together two fact sheets, one with information about the school closings that are likely to occur and the other about the loss of affordable housing in the city. As it turns out, those hand outs were considered so subversive that many of Empower DC’s members were threatened with arrest should they distribute those materials in the summit. So much for a frank and open conversation Mayor Gray! Although, many felt the summit was genuinely participatory, others though Gray was using the summit as an opportunity to present his plans to the public in the hopes that they would simply rubber stamp his agenda. One such voice was Empower DC education organizer Daniel del Pielago who is quoted in the Washington Post. Only time will tell if any of the independent ideas generated in the small group discussions will actually bear fruit. We will explore some of those independent ideas in future posts related to this subject. For now watch the video. Decide for yourself if it represents the real-time grassroots democracy that Mayor Gray believes the summit achieved.
At the risk of offending the Gray Administration, who seems to think they have a monopoly on how to improve the city despite rhetoric that says the exact opposite, here’s a link to Empower DC’s “subversive” literature the Citizens Summit Hand Out, which was the cause of all the above controversy. In it we suggest that the 55 percent rise in the cost of housing since 2007 should prompt the Mayor to use funding from the newly found $240 million surplus to fully fund the housing production trust fund in order to protect and preserve low and moderate cost housing. Actually enforcing the Inclusionary Zoning Law which REQUIRES developers to include low and moderately priced housing in their high end developments wouldn’t hurt either. Or that because most DC families who have an income less than $2500 a month are paying over 60% of that income on housing, maybe Mayor Gray should use funding from the newly found $240 million surplus to fully fund (ERAP) Emergency Rental Assistance Program to help prevent the evictions of low-income residents. Should the Gray Administration be afraid of our suggestion that the IFF study is flawed and that a moratorium should be placed on all school closings? Download and judge for yourself.
School closing + the loss of affordable housing = DISPLACEMENT
That’s the equation that is behind the loss of many of DC’s low- and moderate-income residents to the suburbs. Empower DC exposed this equation for displacement in an Info and Action Summit, Saturday February 4, 2012. Over a hundred DC residents, all concerned about school closings and DC’s affordable housing crisis participated in the event. The result was a plan to have an organized presence at Mayor Vince Gray’s Citizen’s Summit on Saturday February 11, 2012, where we will bring the concerns of DC residents who are most vulnerable to the threat of displacement to the mayor’s attention. For more information contact Daniel del Pielago at 202-234-9119 ext 104 or email Daniel@EmpowerDC.org.
Prior to the action planning component of the day, Empower DC conducted a popular education exercise which revealed many of the factors that lead to displacement. Some of them, like the a new Metro station or a Riverwalk, certainly sound like good things but far too often we don’t think about how these developments will impact residents who can’t afford the rising property values that accompany these changes. Everyone wants access to public transportation, clean parks and recreation facilities, not to mention libraries and good schools in their communities. Why is it that in Washington DC, these things seem reserved only for those who can afford the highest rents and mortgages? The question we should be pondering is how can we have development without displacement? I hope you’ll consider that question as you ponder the following factors most of which relate to the Riverside Community, which is facing a school closure and heightened interest from developers. Even though these factors relate to Riverside, notice how similar they are to development happening in other neighborhoods that are facing school closures.
School Closings
CHARLESYOUNGELEMENTARY SCHOOL (820 26th Street, NE)
Young is located right next to the Langston Dwellings (public housing) and Spingarn High School, Charles Young Elementary sits atop a hill overlooking Langston Golf Course and the PEPCO plant. Young was closed in 2008 and the city is now planning to surplus this property.
SPINGARN HIGH SCHOOL (2500 Benning Rd. NE)
Spingarn High has been identified as a Tier 4 school in the recent study commissioned by the District (IFF study) and is recommended for closure or turnaround. Spingarn is right next to Charles Young elementary which the City plans to surplus and the Langston Dwellings (public housing).
Spingarn enrolls about 550 students
77% of students qualify for free & reduced lunch
68% of Spingarn students are in-boundary which means it is a neighborhood school
RIVERTERRACEELEMENTARY SCHOOL
In 2010 DCPS proposed the closing of River Terrace Elementary, the community organized and was able to get a year’s extension on the decision to close the school. This past December of 2011 Kaya Henderson/Mayor Gray announced they would close the school at the end of the 2011/2012 school year. The school and the River Terrace community sit directly next to the Anacostia River on a big plot of land, close to the Benning Road entrance of the Anacostia River Walk Trail.
Affordable Housing
Since 2000, the District government has allowed more than 7,500 housing units that costs $500 per month and under, to be lost without an equal replacement.
Prior to 2000, the District of Columbia had approximately 11,000 units of public housing, but between 2001 & 2007 – DC lost 1,300 units of public housing without one-to-one replacement.
Currently, the U.S. Congress want to raise the minimum rent on the lowest income residents who live in public housing and Section 8 housing regardless of their income. In the District of Columbia approximately 4,000 households will be impacted and could be forced into homelessness. Families living in Carver Terrace, Langston Dwellings, the Pinnacle could all be affected.
Youth In DC
Since 2007, 4,000 children have been affected by home foreclosures in the District
In 2010, 16,000 children had a least one parent who was unemployed (15%).
Poverty
23.23% of Carver Terrace residents’ incomes are below the poverty level. In Washington D.C. 20.22% of residents are below the poverty level. In the United States only 12.38% of residents’ are below the poverty level.
Carver Terrace residents have an even lower income than the other residents in their neighborhood of Washington D.C. of $27,019, 36% lower than the United States median income.
Metro
A 2030 Metro map forecasts a metro station in the River Terrace community. According to Metro:
Metro boosts property values—adding 6.8% more value to residential, 9.4% to multi-family, and 8.9% to commercial office properties within a half-mile of a rail station. 1 Property becomes significantly more valuable as a property gets closer to Metrorail stations.
Anacostia River Walk
“The Anacostia river Walk trail Project is a 20 mile multiuse trail that stretches from PG County, MD to the national mall. The river walk project is being lead by DDOT and the DC Metro rail system will interface with the river walk to create a full range of transportation alternative in the region.”
Streetcars
“The streetcar system would increase existing residential property value by $1.0 billion to $1.6 billion. Most property values would increase 5% to 12%, with values likely to rise even higher in areas that have many prime redevelopment sites. The strongest growth in demand for both existing and new development would occur adjacent to downtown:
U Street/Logan Circle/Florida Avenue/NoMa/Howard University/western Rhode Island Avenue
H Street/Benning Road
Buzzard Point
Capitol Riverfront
Other significant increases in demand would occur in Downtown Anacostia, Washington Hospital Center, Takoma Park, and Georgetown
PEPCO
On May 31, 2012, the PEPCO power plant, located on 77-acres along Ward 7’s Benning Road in NE DC, plans to decommission. There have been several bids made on the land to redevelop it as a mixed use space with high priced condos.
If you plan to join us at the Mayor’s Citizen Summit here are the specifics:
Join the Empower DC contingent at the Mayor’s “One City Citizen’s Summit”
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Meet at 11 AM
At the Convention Center
801 Mt Vernon Pl, NW
We’ll meet at the Mt. Vernon Place entrance of the Mt. Vernon Square Metro, across from Carnegie Library. Our plan is to deliver information about the proposed school closings and DC’s loss of affordable housing to summit participants. More about the specific information we’ll be delivering in tomorrow’s post.
Crossposted from Street Sense, written by Mary Otto
Rents could be raised for some of the nation’s poorest tenants under a provision of a bill now working its way through Congress.
A draft version of a bill entitled the Affordable Housing and Self-Sufficiency Improvement Act, released on Jan. 13 would remove a cap in place since 1998, allowing the housing secretary and public housing landlords to boost rents in housing projects and project-based Section 8 apartments.
As Street Sense was going to press on the evening of Jan. 17, housing advocates were expected to convene a meeting at the Southeast Branch Public Library to discuss the possible impact of the bill with public housing tenants.
“I’m going to say to the tenants to go try and meet with the Subcommittee Chairwoman, Congresswoman Biggert, and tell her that there are families who cannot afford an increase in minimum rent, whose housing stability will be threatened by a minimum rent policy that has no cap,” said National Low Income Housing Coalition vice president Linda Couch, a scheduled speaker at the event, organized by the District of Columbia Grassroots Empowerment Project.
A spokesperson for Congresswoman Judy Biggert, an Illinois Republican, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity, did not return calls for comment.
But Laquita Eddie, a resident and community board president at Faircliff Plaza West, a federally-subsidized project-based Section 8 apartment complex in Columbia Heights, predicted that a rent increase would further stretch poor tenants who are already at the breaking point.
“No good can come out of this,” said Eddie. She works at a grocery store and pays more than the minimum rent at her complex. Yet with two sons to support, the challenge to make ends meet is constant.
“I’m still struggling, buying food and keeping my lights on,” she said.
And many of her neighbors are surviving on less. If the rent of the poorest among them is increased, they could face desperate choices, Eddie said. “You are talking about a mom trying to feed her kids. “
In the District, approximately 20,000 residents live in public housing, according to DC Housing Authority data, but not all of them would be affected by the bill. While the D.C. Housing Authority has the freedom to set its own minimum rents under the federal “Moving to Work” program, residents of the city’s privately-owned project-based Section 8 units would fall under the draft law. As of Nov, 2011, the District had active contracts for 10,457 units of Project-Based Section 8 housing, according to data contained on the website of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.
Project-based Section 8 tenants typically pay 30 percent of their monthly income toward rent, with rental assistance making up the difference between what the tenants can afford and the approved rent. But even tenants with very little or no income are required to pay something.
Currently, if 30 percent of a tenant’s income is less than $50, he or she can be charged a a minimum rent of up to $50 a month. Under the draft of the new law, the cap on the minimum rent would be lifted. The new minimum rent would be set at at least $69.45, and would be annually indexed to inflation. .
“The current HUD secretary, or the next one could go beyond,” said Couch. With the cap removed, “there is no limit.”
A HUD spokeswoman said she could not comment on the pending legislation. The bill, which may be scheduled for markup in coming weeks, is part of larger ongoing reform efforts that have targeted rental assistance programs run by HUD. Housing officials and lawmakers say the reforms are intended to preserve and expand affordable housing opportunities.
The nation’s public housing system, which currently serves more than 4 million elderly, disabled, homeless, poor and working individuals and families and subsidizes over one million Project-Based Section 8 apartments, is facing an historic level of need, according to Assistant HUD Secretary Sandra B. Henriquez, who testified in June before Biggert’s Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity subcommittee.
Henriquez said HUD’s 2011 “Worst Case Housing Needs” Study showed a 20 percent increase in renters paying more than half their income in rent, living in severely inadequate conditions, or both, between 2007 and 2009.
“The demand on our rental programs has been steadily increasing as incomes have dropped and homes have been lost to foreclosure,” she told the lawmakers.
At Faircliff Plaza West, Santiago DeAngulo has seen that demand first hand.
“We have a waiting list of over 400 here,” said DeAngulo, a district manager for Eagle Point Management, which oversees the operation of the 112-unit complex. Once run-down and crime-ridden, the apartments underwent an $18 million renovation back in 2005. Under project-based rental assistance, HUD’s subsidy is committed for a contractually-determined period.
As part of Faircliff Plaza West’s upgrade project, financed with the help of tax-exempt bonds and low-income housing credits, the development’s Section 8 contract was renewed for 20 years to help ensure the rents would remain affordable.
But not all such contracts are renewed. In the face of rising property values and development pressure, housing officials and advocates across the country face a constant battle to preserve affordable housing. Tenants at Faircliff Plaza West are lucky to have their apartments, even if their rent goes up, said DeAngulo.
“Most of the families who are in the shelters, they would love to be here even if they were paying 50 percent of their income for rent.”
On April 15, 2011 the United States House of Representatives approved a Budget Resolution for 2012 proposed by conservative Wisconsin Representative Paul Ryan. Ryan’s resolution, if passed, will abolish Medicare and mandate budget cuts totaling $5.5 billion to Housing and Urban Development programs starting in October 2011. All of these cuts target low- and moderate-income people and add up to more than double the amount cut in 2010.
The House budget also calls for work requirements, time limits and rent increases for elderly, disabled and low income tenants receiving HUD assistance. Currently, the House Budget Committee plans to cut 14% of HUD programs across the board, leaving 294,000 Voucher families, 150,000 Public Housing families, and 180,000 Project Based Section 8 families without homes beginning in October. If these cuts are applied proportionately to Washington, D.C., 1520 Voucher families, 1100 Public Housing families, and 1540 Project Based Section 8 families will lose their homes.
Earlier this year, the Save Our Homes Coalition—representing tenants who live in Section 8 public housing programs as well as housing voucher recipients from across the country—coordinated a national day of action to protest the proposed cuts to the HUD budget in Fiscal Year 2011. Nineteen cities participated in a series of actions that took place on Valentine’s Day, including Washington, DC. Grassroots Media Project ally, Judith Hawkins of Valencia’s It Is What It Is Mobile Talk Show, along with Project trainees from Different Avenues, Grace Ebiasah and Jasmine Archer, produced the following video.
As a result of the nation-wide “Have a Heart-Save Our Homes” rallies, like the one shown above, as well as other pressure from the Left, deep cuts to HUD rental housing programs were avoided. However, Republicans have again called for deep spending cuts. This time they are tied to the increase in the US debt ceiling, which must be voted on by August 2 to avoid a US government default. To avoid further cuts, tenants are urging support for alternative revenues by taxing the wealthy and closing loopholes for giant corporations that paid no federal taxes in 2010.
According to US Uncut, a self-described grassroots movement taking direct action against corporate tax cheats and unnecessary and unfair public service cuts across the United States, Bank of America paid no federal income taxes in 2010. In fact, BOA received a tax refund of $666 million—despite record profits and lavish taxpayer bailouts. US Uncut and others estimate that making large corporations pay their fair share would generate as much as $100 billion per year. If BOA paid their fair share at the supposed “corporate income tax rate” of 35%, $4.2 billion in cuts could be avoided—enough to prevent the deep cuts to HUD rental programs proposed by the House Budget Committee for FY 2012.
To that end, low income tenant leaders and organizations from across the nation will come together June 21, to urge the US Treasury to “Tax the Cheats and Save Our Homes.” The National Alliance of HUD Tenants and local organizations Empower DC, ONE DC and the Community for Creative Non-Violence urge everyone suffering under DC’s affordable housing crisis to join them at the following rally at the Bank of America and the US Treasury.
Tax the Cheats, Save Our Homes Rally Tuesday, June 21, 2011 10:30 – 11:30 am 730 15th Street NW (Bank of America) Washington, DC 20005
Tuesday’s demonstration will feature tenant leaders from across the nation gathered in Washington, D.C. for the annual conference of the National Alliance of HUD Tenants (NAHT), the nation’s only national tenants union. They will be joined by tenants and homeless people from DC, including Empower DC, ONE DC, and the Community for Creative Non-Violence. For more information, contact Empower DC, affordable housing organizer Linda Leaks at 202-234-9119.
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