As developers in Washington, DC continue to push residents out of their homes and develop overpriced businesses and condos, long-time residents continue to discover creative ways to prevent themselves from being displaced. In the video pinned below, residents of Congress Heights, a neighborhood in DC’s Southeast quadrant, who live in a building owned by developer Geoff Griffiths, march to his house in DC’s Northwest quadrant in protest of his refusal to maintain the apartment complexes he operates. With the help of community activists and a non-profit developer, the tenants intend to purchase these buildings and create units of affordable housing:
If you’re interested in supporting the Alabama Ave./13th Street Tenant Coalition in their efforts, use this link to send a letter in support of the coalition to DC’s mayor, Muriel Bowser.
Developer Geoff Griffis wants to turn a rent-controlled Congress Heights apartment complex that he bought from Sanford Capitol into high-end, luxury condominiums. Before he can do it, he has to force all the current residents out. They will not leave without a fight. Residents like Robert T. Greene, who participated in a march to the home of Geoff Griffis on Saturday February 10, is the featured in the video below.
Robert and the other tenants have formed the Alabama Avenue/13th Street Tenant Coalition. The organization intends to buy the property themselves under the District’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA). With the help of nonprofit housing developer National Housing Trust, they would turn the complex into 200 affordable apartments. But Geoff Griffis is doing his best to make sure they can’t buy the property.
ONE DC explains the case and asks that you join them and other anti-displacement activists like Justice First and KeepDC4Me. Show up and …
Help the Alabama Ave./13th Street Tenants Association
Secure the Right to Buy Their Building
Friday, February 16, 2018
DC Superior Court
500 Indiana Avenue NW
Room 518
Noon – 3:00 PM
December 21st. The winter solstice. I’ve come to look forward to this day with both relief and dread….relief that we have reached the point of maximum darkness and we’ll start squeezing a few more moments of sunlight out of each coming day, and dread that we must once again gather to celebrate the lives and mourn the loss of our brothers and sisters who have passed in 2017 while experiencing homelessness. December 21st holds both promise…and pain.
When I was a kid, my mom received a phone call on the morning of December 21st, 1970, from her older sister, with whom my grandmother – my beloved “Nanny” – lived. Nanny, who had spent the evening of December 20th sitting at the kitchen table with her cigarette, her pilsner glass and her crossword puzzle, went to bed, and then never awoke. She had passed unexpectedly during the night…in the warmth of her own bed, after going through her treasured routines, and, if I know my Nanny, after kissing my aunt and uncle good night and getting down on her knees to ask God to bless us all. It was, in a sense, a perfect, dignified, passing.
Placard bearing the names of people that died while homeless in the District of Columbia.
There were 45 deaths this year of people who lived unhoused in the nation’s capital that were very far from perfect passings…deaths of women and men who had no kitchen table, no warm bed, no family members to kiss goodnight, and for some, not even a floor to kneel upon for a prayer at the end of the day.
How is it that this continues to happen? Last year, we read out 51 names. In 2015, it was 41. In 2005, there were 34.
How is it, that in this nation’s capital, in this progressive city that has declared itself to be a human rights city, in this community that has committed itself to “making homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring,” how is it that we can continue to let this happen?
The Homeless Services Reform Amendment Act of 2017 is currently under DC Council review. After mulling over the latest amendments they will vote on it again December 5, 2017. Before that happens, we’d like Grassroots DC readers to have some basic information about this bill so we’ve cross-posted the following from the Fair Budget Coalition, which describes what happened during the debate of proposed changes to the bill on November 7, 2017.
So said Ward 1 Councilmember, Brianne Nadeau, chair of the Committee on Human Services regarding the time-limit for the District’s Rapid Rehousing Program, a highly criticized program that places families from shelter into temporary housing. When the subsidy cuts off, families often find themselves unable to afford the market rent of the unit they occupy and soon end up in eviction court, and then circle back to the shelter door with a new eviction on their rental history.
During debate on the proposed changes to the Homeless Services Reform Act on Tuesday, November 7, Ward 8 Councilmember, Trayon White, introduced an amendment that would extend the rapid rehousing time-limit and introduce common sense measures to assess whether a family received proper case management services or is financially stable enough to afford their unit. However, this amendment was rejected 6-7, with Anita Bonds casting the deciding vote because, as she put it, “I was told to vote no.” (The Councilmembers who voted against extending people’s time in rapid re-housing under these circumstances were Mendelson, Nadeau, Todd, Allen, Cheh, Evans and Bonds.)
Though earlier this year, Nadeau championed the legislation that ended arbitrary time-limits for the District’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program (TANF), she took a hard line on extending the temporary housing subsidy for the 1300 families currently in the program. “I understand your compassion,” she says, “but at some point we have to draw the line. This is a short-term program. We have other programs.”
A quick review of the housing programs funded in this year’s FY18 budget, reveals that this is not exactly the case.
In FY18, there was funding to support 174 families in the Permanent Supportive Housing Program and 186 families in the Targeted Affordable Housing Program and approximately 250 families from off of the waitlist. That means that there are permanent housing opportunities for about 610 families of the 42,266 families in the District who are not stably housed.
This basic math problem cuts to the core of our affordability crisis. Families don’t make enough money to afford market rate housing. The District has lost its stock of market-rate affordable units. Our Mayor and Council have not allocated enough money in the budget to provide housing for those who need it.
Rather than voting for solutions that would help solve this problem (funding more affordable housing), the Council took a punitive approach by supporting changes to the Homeless Services Reform Act that would make it more difficult for families to get into shelter, make it easier to get kicked out from shelter, and institute arbitrary time limits for the rapid rehousing program.
And to make matters worse, right before this vote, the Council voted to give $82 million away to developers to build around Union Market, including $36 million to fund a parking lot, with no evidence whatsoever that this huge subsidy was even needed. There was not a single requirement that the jobs created are good quality, or that the developers subsidize affordable housing. All while claiming that we don’t have enough resources to serve the families in our “hemorrhaging homeless services system.”
In reality, it is this kind of unchecked development that drives up the cost of housing and ultimately push people out of their homes either into homelessness or into more affordable regions like Prince George’s County. It is District residents who have been displaced because of publically subsidized development that are flooding our homelessness services systems. By continuing to fund development while narrowing the door to shelter, the Council is exacerbating the problem, not fixing it.
When At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman tried to redirect the parking lot funds to support affordable housing and transit options, she only got support from At-Large Councilmember David Grosso, and was repudiated by the rest of the Council. Chairperson Phil Mendelson referred to the affordable housing crisis as “rhetoric,” and the rest of the council rolled their eyes. They funded luxury housing instead of affordable. Then they pivoted to blame homeless people from outside of the District for flooding our system, and disparaged the homeless families who they claim are lying to get into shelter when they have safe places that they could otherwise go.
This post is about accountability. It’s about the fact that the Chair of our Council does not believe that there is an affordable housing crisis and propagates the stereotype that poor Black people are lying to get into shelter, taking advantage of the system, and don’t know what’s best for their families. He re-introduced a harmful provision of the HSRA that was removed during the Committee mark-up that creates a “presumption” that families are lying about needing shelter if they are on a lease or “occupancy agreement” and demands that homeless families provide “credible evidence” that they have no safe housing to get shelter on a freezing night. He believes that the Mayor knows better than they do that they have a safe place to go, and this harmful philosophy was supported by Councilmembers Nadeau, Cheh, Evans, McDuffie, Todd, Allen and Bonds.
What we saw at the Council was an affront to progressive values. To vote to give away that sum of money to developers while claiming there is not enough money to support homeless families was a slap in the face to every single District resident who has struggled to find affordable housing, who has come out to support homeless services, and who voted for “progressive champions” who would advance an affordable housing agenda. Hundreds and thousands of emails and phone calls and tweets, countless letters supported by scores of organizations throughout the city urged councilmembers to vote “no” on this bill. Elissa Silverman told advocates that she had not received a single e-mail telling her to vote for this bill. Yet, at the end of the day, the bill passed 11-2, with only Councilmembers Trayon White and David Grosso opposing.
In just a few hours, our Council drew the line by prioritizing corporate subsidies over the lives of homeless children.
The D.C. Office of Planning is amending the Comprehensive Plan, a long-standing document that outlines priorities for D.C.’s future growth and change. In a statement from the Office of Planning, Director Eric Shaw encouraged residents to read the Comprehensive Plan and make suggestions for changes.
“‘Planning an Inclusive City’ is the guiding vision for the DC Comprehensive Plan. An inclusive city is one where every member of the community feels welcome wherever they are in the city, and where everyone has a fair and equitable opportunity to live a healthy, successful and fulfilling life,” Edward Geifer, associate director of the Office of Planning, wrote in an email to Street Sense.
A heterogeneous coalition was born out of the Office of Planning’s call to the public. Community organizations, for-profit and nonprofit developers, faith groups, tenant advocates and other local organizations have formed a loose coalition of interested parties to identify priorities for creating more affordable housing and community support for under-resourced communities in D.C. The coalition met over several months to reach an agreement on a series of priorities that are listed on their website at www.DCHousingpriorities.org.
According to the 2016 annual census done by the D.C. Council on Homelessness, 8,350 people experience homelessness on any given night in the city. Coalition members want to see growth in the city but also want the Office of Planning to know that growth does not mean pushing marginalized people further to the margins.
“It is possible to build new housing, including a good measure of affordable housing, and grow the District’s tax base in a way that makes business sense and advances the public good. The result can be a combination of new housing and amenities for residents and increased revenue for the city so it can continue to enhance quality of life,” said Aakash Thakkar in the a news release. Thakkar is the senior vice president of EYA, a real estate development firm that is part of the coalition.
Coalition members believe that more affordable housing and targeted support for D.C. communities should be in the Comprehensive Plan. Philip Stump-Kennedy told Street Sense that Latino Economic Development Center (LEDC) joined the coalition in hopes of using the Office of Planning as a tool for their mission. Stump-Kennedy is the regional tenant organizing manager at LEDC. He said he is tasked with the preservation of affordable housing in D.C, which is one of the priorities the coalition wants addressed. He referred to the lack of affordable housing in D.C. and said it is important that subsidized housing like Section 8 housing is maintained in the District.
Stump-Kennedy also believes rent control is an important part of affordable housing preservation. The rest of the coalition agrees and lists the protection of tenants as a priority. Stump-Kennedy said that the LEDC focuses on organizing tenants, connecting them with attorneys and other tenant associations. Stump-Kennedy said there is strength in numbers and organization.
“We need policies that preserve the affordable housing we already have as the District develops. It’s clear the city needs more units to meet the demand of the people coming here, but we also need strategies to protect tenants who are struggling to stay in the city. Those goals don’t have to be in conflict,” said Rob Wohl, a tenant organizer for the LEDC, in a news release.
The coalition members believe that the development of affordable housing and equitable economics requires the participation of all D.C. communities in order to move toward a solution. A full list of organizations and businesses in support of the D.C. housing priorities can be found on their webpage.
Residents can get involved by signing up for updates at plandc.dc.gov and submitting proposed amendments during the open call period for amendments.
