Why isn’t there enough affordable housing in the District of Columbia? It’s not that complicated. If you’re a landlord or a property developer, there isn’t much incentive to rent to someone who can afford only $500 per month versus someone who can afford $1,000 or $2,000 per month. If you’re looking for an answer to the District’s affordable housing crisis, don’t look to commercial real estate.
What about government? Does the city have an obligation to make sure that those in need have housing? As a Human Rights City, the District is morally but not legally obligated to insure that everyone has housing. Based on the city’s ever diminishing number of public housing units, one can assume this is not an obligation that the city takes too seriously. Yes, Mayor Bowser has dedicated $100 million to affordable housing programs, but most of this money will bolster housing for those whose income is near the median.
Which brings us to organizations like Pan African Community Action (PACA) and the National Black United Front. These organizations work toward full community access to the resources needed to realize a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of individuals and families, including: food, clothing, housing, medical care, and necessary social services.
For the Pan African Community Action political education, action and advocacy are an important part of their programming. There latest action was to host a Community Town Hall Meeting with the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent. The group is a body of independent experts dedicated to improving the human rights situation of the Black Diaspora. They came to the District to learn how African-Americans are treated in the United States. Participants were asked to testify about gentrification, police brutality, labor, environmental racism and gender oppressions. The video below is a montage of testimonials regarding the many unarmed Blacks who’ve been killed by the police, most of whom don’t get national attention.
Although PACA calls for community control over the police, they believe that no real headway will be made with regard to injustice and inequity for African-descended people (or anyone else for that matter) until there is community control over the land, water, and jobs. To that end, PACA will be hosting the …
Community Popular Education Forum: COMMUNITY CONTROL OF RESOURCES
Thursday, February 11
6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
Petworth Library
4200 Kansas Ave NW
This past summer, much media attention was given to what has been called a “surge” of violent crime in DC. Resident reactions to the violent crime have been particularly severe on Capitol Hill, a neighborhood straddling the Northeast and Southeast quadrants of the city. Increasingly alarmed by feelings of insecurity and danger, Capitol Hill residents took to the ‘New Hill East (a name given to the area by developers to appeal to potential real estate buyers) listserv to discuss best practices for addressing public safety as well as the needs for Capitol Hill’s entire community. However, before we are able to adequately address complex social issues we must, as best as we can, take into account the various historical, social, psychological, and economic factors influencing them. Otherwise, potential insights and solutions will go unobserved and circumstances contributing to the current predicament may even be reproduced. Sadly, most Capitol Hill residents are looking a swift and cursory cure for their anxieties.
One of the most outspoken Hill residents on the listserv, Richard Lukas, who claims to have lived on the Hill for fifteen years, dubbed the spike in crime a ‘reign of terror’ in an email sent out to the listserv on Oct. 15th, claiming that “a very active segment of marauding at-risk youths who find satisfaction from terrorizing people on a daily basis” are responsible for the inflated crime rate.
Continuing to speak of the crime spike as a ‘reign of terror’, in an article Lukas wrote for HillNow, Lukas identifies public housing complexes, like Potomac Gardens, as “hotspots” of criminal activity—even suggesting “sentinel stations” be placed near, or within, public housing complexes. The harsh, frenzied nature of Lukas’ sentiments are not to be taken lightly—especially while presidential candidate Donald Trump continues to receive support from US citizens despite his blatant racism and xenophobia. What’s concerning is how national and local policies will be influenced by sentiments voiced by people like Trump and Lukas.
However, what worries me most is Lukas’ lopsided understanding of how gentrification, poverty, and crime work in tandem. On his HillNow post, and in the New Hill East listserv, Lukas writes:
I do think that things will get better due to the slow churn of progressive policy reforms being made in our education system and social services, but also due to the increased density through city development. (Even though people like me could never afford that $500,000 one-bedroom condo!)
Here, Lukas doesn’t seem to comprehend that increased city development, also known as gentrification, may be contributing to the recent spike in crime and that, eventually, “people like [him]” may not eventually be able to afford living in the city itself. Presently, the rift between the city’s wealthy and the city’s poor is already staggering. As gentrification advances, and costs of living subsequently increase, this rift will widen—creating conditions in which low-income people will find living in the city even more financially taxing.
As the cost of living increases, and economic resources continue to be distributed inequitably, understanding the relationship between crime and poverty is vital to develop an intelligent and compassionate perspective on the events that took place during the summer. Rather than pinning people who are poor as inherently violent and/or willing to engage in criminal behavior, it is important to understand that poverty often causes people to engage in criminal and/or violent behavior to make ends meet.
Poverty’s effects on the psyche often goes ignored as well, an experience brilliantly encapsulated by the writer James Baldwin when he said, “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”. As stated by the researchers at Poverties.org, “It’s only when people witness the starkest wealth differences that they can start complaining about injustice.”. In an area that has recently undergone tremendous development, such as DC, the city’s disenfranchised residents have been extremely vocal about their frustrations. And, as the DC’s gentrification becomes increasingly visible, the residents’ frustrations will increase as well. Contributing to the inherent tensions across lines of class inflamed by gentrification, in DC, race, and histories of white supremacy in the United States, add another layer of complexity to the issue. For Black people in the United States, gentrification must be situated within a history of displacement by white people, beginning with the Middle Passage. For example, until the 1950’s, there existed a multitude of Black-owned homes and businesses in Southwest DC. However, these residents were forced to relocate to other parts of the city by the order of the DC government.
Throughout history it has not been uncommon for Black people to be murdered, tricked, or terrorized off of land they’ve settled on. Therefore, gentrification, and the resultant increased costs of living which prices people out of gentrifying areas, is a point of contention for Black people across the country. In regards to DC specifically, Black people’s identification with the city itself must also be considered when attempting to understand why DC’s Black residents react to gentrification with intense scorn. After the rebellions of 1968, sparked by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., DC’s middle-class, white and Black, fled the city, leaving the city to a predominantly Black low-income population. While systemic racism and poverty created hardships in the lives of post-rebellion DC residents, cultural forms, such as go-go, were produced as well—making spaces for community to be built based on shared culture, a cultural identity heavily attached to location of birth. Therefore, a unique form of resentment simmers in the hearts of DC’s long-time Black residents as ‘Chocolate City’ becomes less and less ‘chocolate’.
Sadly, those remaining long-time residents are in danger of recent DC transplants mistaking them for criminals—which was addressed by New Hill East listserv participant Linda who sent,
A post to the man walking a white hound on C St SE between 17th and 18th between 6:30 and 6:45 PM tonight: I was only asking you which side of the sidewalk your dog preferred to pass on – not demanding your money/phone/wallet… We can’t be a community if you fear/think that every person of color who passes you on the sidewalk is about to mug you. I cannot imagine what this man was thinking in how he treated me, but his treatment of me made me feel unwelcome and unsafe in my own fricking neighborhood… As long as you approach this crime issue with an “us” against “them” mentality – with the “them” being every Black person on foot, on bike, or in car, you’ll never feel safe and you’ll never truly be a neighborhood.
As a result of stereotypes about Black people proliferated by the media, many white people live under the impression that Black people are dangerous—prone to committing random acts of crime and violence. This fear of Black people has been shown to have severe, even lethal, consequences for Black people who are perceived as threats. Also, a heightened police presence has also been linked to gentrification and, due to years of brutalization by police forces, Black residents in gentrifying neighborhoods are distrustful of more recent, often white, residents who are prone to calling the police. The call for more police appears more than once in the New Hill East listserv, even by those who aren’t as hysterical as Lukas, and others who react in a similar fashion. Jennifer, who believes the response to the crime wave requires a “two-pronged approach” and is willing to address systemic inequality also wrote, “…a short term police presence again, like we had a month or so back, seems in order given the ridiculous spike this week.” Ultimately, both Lukas and Linda are both tragically confused about how to address crime in DC. In Lukas’ case, the gentrification he claims will improve quality of life in the city may end up displacing him along with the “marauding at-risk youth” he is so concerned about. And, in regard to Jennifer, calling the police into the community she’s attempting to support will only further the divisions between herself and her neighbors. To address crime in a just, equitable fashion, one must push for policies that bring job creation, living wages, high-quality education, and affordable housing into the city. Only when the masses have access to a high quality of life will criminal activity become an irregularity.
Last week, the DC Council voted 9-4 against requiring that the new DC General replacement shelters have private bathrooms. Councilmember Mary Cheh introduced an amendment requiring private bathrooms for every unit, and Councilmembers McDuffie, Silverman, and Orange supported it. Councilmembers Mendelson, Grosso, Bonds, Nadeau, Evans, Todd, Allen, Alexander and May voted against Cheh’s amendment. Instead, they voted for Chairman Mendelson’s “compromise”— an amendment that mandates that just 10% of the new units have private bathrooms and that there be one family bathroom for every five units. The issue was not, as some characterized it, about whether or not to close DC General. The Mayor and Council had previously committed to closing DC General, and this bill does not speak to nor require its closure. The debate was about what the minimal legal standards should be for the six new shelters that will replace DC General. Right before the vote on Councilmember Cheh’s amendment, she grew exasperated and said “Spend a little more money for dignity and safety! What’s wrong with us?” We need to stop and think about this question before we can move forward.
We do believe that there’s something wrong with the Council’s failure to require that each shelter room have its own bathroom. Our position, that private bathrooms are necessary to protect the health, safety, and dignity of homeless families, remains unchanged. We got our marching orders from our years of working with families sheltered in communal settings, and from a recent survey we did with 53 homeless families. We heard our clients and affected community members loud and clear when they said private bathrooms are critical in shelter to protect their own and their children’s physical and emotional health and safety. The “compromise” could require 90% of families to share residential bathrooms with strangers, shifting the balance almost entirely away from the expressed needs of the affected community.
We do believe there’s something wrong with the Council’s vote last Tuesday, not only because the legislation as passed could have serious, negative repercussions for homeless families for decades to come, but because it signifies that 9 out of 13 DC Councilmembers abdicated two essential responsibilities of the legislative branch of government when they failed to listen to the needs of the affected community and failed to exercise independent decision-making to enact sound public policy.
The entire process leading up to the Council’s vote was structured in a way that excluded the voices of the affected community, from scheduling a hearing at 2PM on a weekday when parents had to pick up children from school, to refusing to allow families to testify earlier to accommodate their schedules, to an Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH) process that didn’t include even one homeless family. When we attempted to remedy these omissions, by conveying survey results, the family input was derided as not “relevant” and we were asked if we had any “studies” or “experts” to back up what the families were saying. Our view is that the real experts on the harmful effects of shared bathrooms are the families who are living right now in shelters with shared bathrooms.
While there was broad agreement from affected community members, most advocates, and many members of the public that private bathrooms are critical in the new shelters, the Administration claimed an ever-shifting series of terrible consequences if the law required private bathrooms. And yet, in spite of repeated requests from the Council, the Administration never provided any demonstrable evidence of these consequences. Nevertheless, 9 out of 13 Council members simply took the Mayor’s word for it, at considerable expense to the health and safety of the District residents they were elected to serve. We believe there’s something wrong with that.
Our criticism is not just about bathrooms, not just about families, and not just about homelessness. It’s also about the judgments that are made and the “-isms” that bleed into conversations and decisions about policies affecting people experiencing poverty in DC. It’s about the way the Administration claimed that private bathrooms would make homeless families too “comfortable” even when their data supported the opposite conclusion. And the ease with which decision-makers put up barriers to democratic participation by homeless families. And the ease with which these families are blamed for their homelessness when institutional racism and the resulting disinvestment in poor black communities are far more powerful forces in creating homelessness in DC than any one individual’s decision-making. We believe there’s something wrong with that…and with us as a community that lets this happen.
We can do better. All of us. While the standard in the law for family shelters has been lowered, that doesn’t mean that Mayor Bowser cannot far exceed this floor—and she has promised to try to do so. As the process unfolds – as a design committee is convened, as buildings and sites are secured, as plans are drawn and construction begins – there are opportunities to do right by homeless families. We urge the Administration to find a meaningful way to engage families, seeking their input and not simply their feedback, at every step along the way. It’s up to us now—including the DC Council—to hold the Mayor to her promise to exceed the new lower standard in the law, and to root her decisions about shelter design in the input and stories of the people who will one day have to live in those shelters.
According to DC law (specifically the District of Columbia’s First Source Employment Agreement Act of 1984), city residents should be given priority for new jobs created by municipal financing and development programs. Because of this law, DC residents have since 1984 received more jobs particularly in construction and the hospitality industry, right? Not according to the numbers. Originally, the law required that 51% of all new hires on any government-assisted project or contract must be District residents. However, amendments to the original law exempted contracts under $300,000 and job categories if skilled workers within those categories are not available. Not surprisingly, very few, government contractors actually comply with the 51% new hire regulation, as the chart below illustrates.
So much for the notion that development (i.e. gentrification) spurs job growth for DC residents. What can be done? Join ONE DC’s First Source Jobs Action and find out.
Come and rise up with ONE DC in action to hold the Mayor accountable to District residents who want to work. This action is a next step in raising awareness about the lack of enforcement around the First Source Law and the city’s broken workforce development system. We plan to get the attention of Mayor Bowser and have her meet our demands.
Join us at Freedom Plaza (closest Metro Station- Federal Triangle) where we will have a teach-in about direct action followed the action at the Wilson Building.
Wednesday, July 22, 2015 9am – 1pm Freedom Plaza 1455 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington , DC 20004 United States
Demand economic and racial justice!
Hold our mayor, DC public officials, developers and companies accountable to First Source!
Museum Square is a Section 8 apartment complex in the Chinatown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The Section 8 or Housing Choice Voucher Program is a federal program that assists very low-income families, the elderly and the disabled who cannot afford decent, safe and sanitary housing in the private market. Since housing assistance is provided on behalf of the family or individual, participants are free to choose any housing that meets the requirements of the program and are not limited to units located in subsidized housing projects. Sounds great, doesn’t it? The problem is that the vast majority of housing in the District doesn’t meet the requirement simply because landlords refuse to accept Housing Choice vouchers.
Housing Choice vouchers are traditionally accepted in low-income communities. The District’s neighborhoods are gentrifying so quickly that there are very few low-income communities left. When an otherwise low-income or working class community like Chinatown is “developed,” landlords who have contracts with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to accept Housing Choice or Section 8 vouchers often decide not to renew their contract. Once the contract runs out, they can sell the property to a developer who will kick out all of the voucher holders and move in tenants who can afford whatever rent they want to charge without government assistance. We call this displacement. But it doesn’t have to happen.
We, the people of DC, can take a stand for development without displacement, and help tenants stay in their homes!
Jews United for Justice, Andy Shallal, and Think Local First DC are throwing a party for neighbors and local businesses to celebrate and support the tenants of Museum Square in their struggle.
Celebrating the Museum Square Community Monday July 20, 2015 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM Busboys and Poets (5th and K location) 1025 5th Street NW
When the Williamsburg, Va-based Bush Companies (also known as the W.H.H. Trice & Company, but neither has any meaningful online presence) decided they didn’t want to renew their Section 8 contract for the Museum Square Apartment complex, they informed the tenants. Because 70% of the tenants in the 312-unit complex are Chinese immigrants many of whom have limited English, they relied on the remaining 30%, most of whom are African-American to explain the meaning of the eviction letter that the Bush Companies had placed under their doors.
The tenants had two distinct choices, they could take their Housing Choice vouchers to another landlord or they could try and take advantage of the city’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act or TOPA. According to this legislation, Museum Square residents would be able to stay in their homes if they or a nonprofit developer willing to work with them, could come up with the $250 million dollars that the Bush Companies were asking for the property. Of course, if each household had $800,000 to pay for their apartments, they could bypass the nonprofit developer all together.
Turns out none of them wanted to leave their homes, but the $250 million dollars that the Bush Companies was asking for was more than any reasonable non-profit developer would try and raise. So the tenants went with a third option. They sued the Bush Companies for violating TOPA. Their case was based on the assumption that the price for the building was set astronomically high so that the tenants couldn’t possibly raise the money. Last year the property was valued at $36 million. So, it’s also unlikely that a for profit developer would make an offer of anything close to $250 million for the building. Not selling the building would allow the Bush Company to evict the low-rent tenants, tear the building down, build high-priced luxury condos and make a ridiculous profit in the process.
D.C.’s city council was also alarmed by the $250 million price tag. Was this loophole in TOPA the beginning of a new trend that would allow landlords a way out of their Section 8 contracts without the constraints of TOPA? In response, the city passed emergency legislation they hoped would stop the Bush Companies from selling or tearing down the property. The Bush Company in turn sued the city, claiming that the law singled them out. It didn’t work. In April of this year, a judge rejected the $250 million price tag, ruling that it was not a “bonafide offer of sale.” But the fight is not over. Despite claiming that they no longer want out of their Section 8 contract, the Bush Companies has applied for a permit to raze Museum Square. If the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs approves their application the residents of Museum Square could still lose their homes.
What’s most remarkable about this story is the cooperation between the African-American and Chinese residents of Museum Square. The District of Columbia remains one of the most diverse city’s in the nation. It is also just about the most segregated. If the Chinese-American and African-American residents of Museum Square are forced to disperse—most likely to the suburbs—the city will become just that much more segregated. We’ll also lose another 312 affordable apartments. All of this thanks to the greed of a multi-million dollar corporation based in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Join Jews United for Justice, Andy Shallal and Think Local First DC Monday night to make sure #MuseumSquareStays. Hear from tenants and neighborhood leaders on how to support our neighbors as developers like the owner of the building – Bush Companies, which has a long, bad track record for affordability in DC – threaten to push them out.
Being at this party is your vote for a diverse city – and makes a huge difference to struggling tenants who want to know you’re behind them.
Why isn’t there enough affordable housing in the District of Columbia? It’s not that complicated. If you’re a landlord or a property developer, there isn’t much incentive to rent to someone who can afford only $500 per month versus someone who can afford $1,000 or $2,000 per month. If you’re looking for an answer to the District’s affordable housing crisis, don’t look to commercial real estate.
