Last week’s post A Place to Play: Potomac Gardens, Public Housing and Our Children made clear that the playground at the Potomac Gardens public housing complex had seen better days. The children who live in Potomac Gardens had stopped using it and their parents wanted it replaced. But the owners of the property, the District of Columbia Housing Authority, really couldn’t come up with the money to make that happen.
Despite the obvious need for affordable housing in the District of Columbia and indeed urban centers across the country, only a ridiculously small percentage of our taxes supports public housing. As a result, a new playground for Potomac Gardens wouldn’t be funded by the Public Housing Operating Fund or the Public Housing Capital Fund.
It’s very popular among the political right to rely on Ronald Reagan’s edict that “government is not the solution, government is the problem.” One may consider the former state of Potomac Gardens playground as supporting that statement but the reality is we rely on government for a lot of things—infrastructure, education, security, etc. If basic safety net issues were funded properly, government might do better by us all. Until that day arrives (and it might never happen), communities have to make demands of their elected representatives and government officials and then hold them to their mandate to serve the citizenry.
So here’s how Potomac Gardens got its new playground. Parents brought their concerns to the Potomac Gardens Resident Council. Resident Council President and D.C. Housing Authority Commissioner Aquarius Vann-Ghasri, worked with both Little Lights Urban Ministries and DCHA Director of Asset Management Laurie Putscher to try and solve the problem. Little Lights had a relationship with the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project, and despite the fact that the children who live in Potomac Gardens are not in fact homeless, they were willing to work with Little Lights and the Potomac Gardens community. Unfortunately, after months of negotiations and missed deadlines the new playground didn’t materialize.
Residents vote on playground design.
Residents vote on playground design.
Residents vote on playground design.
At this point, DCHA Director of Asset Management Laurie Putscher stepped up to the plate. Though she was unable to leverage DCHA funds for the playground, she was able to leverage resources from the District’s non-profit and corporate sectors. First of all, Putscher contacted Make Kids Smile, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to providing playground equipment for underserved children in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area. Make Kids Smile raises money for playground equipment and donates the materials to the recipient. They also pay a certified installer to be present on the day of the build to ensure the project is properly constructed and meets all applicable safety standards.
The president of Make Kids Smile, brought in a troop of volunteers from Foulger-Pratt, who had assembled and installed playground equipment before. They were joined by a slew of Potomac Gardens’ residents who were delighted to finally see their wishes brought to fruition. Little Lights Urban Ministries, happy to finally have a playground they can use during their summer programming, also sent volunteers.
In addition to volunteers, Foulger-Pratt also donated $5000 to fix the basketball rims, add additional landscaping beautification, and some painting. CT Management, the company DCHA has under contract to manage Potomac Gardens, also donated $5,000 and provided lunch for many of the volunteers. Finally, Laurie Putscher also contacted the Earth Conservation Corps who planted 20-30 trees, not just along the side of the playground itself, but throughout the property.
Providing a playground for kids who live in public housing shouldn’t be more complicated than building a dog park but in the District of Columbia, it might be. In 2007, the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) issued regulations which allowed for the creation of official, public dog parks on District-owned parkland. So far there are two dog parks in Ward Six and a third, which will be funded privately, has been approved. DPR has been around in one form or another since 1790 and yet only maintains eight playgrounds for children in Ward Six, the playground in Potomac Gardens is not one of them.
Public-private partnerships make sense for dog parks but do they make sense for playgrounds? Ward 6 Councilman Charles Allen was happy to ask DCHA Director Adrian Todman to get more involved and push for a new playground at Potomac Gardens, but the driving energy definitely came from the community. Without their willingness to hold elected representatives and public officials accountable to their constituents even this small victory could not have been achieved.
Below are images of the playground on the Potomac Gardens public housing complex as it was when Grassroots DC was founded and moved onto the property back in 2013. Broken down and missing safety rails, is the playground at Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex safe? How do public housing communities fix these issues?
playground
no safety rails
swingset but no swings
no safety rails here either
The state of the playground was a topic of discussion in our basic computer class and a cause for concern in resident council meetings. Little Lights Urban Ministries, another nonprofit located in Potomac Gardens, who offers tutoring and a summer program for kids from pre-k to the 8th grade, also had concerns. The basketball court was another issue. Potomac Gardens’ resident Carlton Moxley sometimes laid out his own cash to replace the backboards.
One might assume that the playground of a public housing complex would be paid for and maintained by the government, but public housing is a complicated business. Most of us don’t even know who owns public housing. Is it the city? Is it the federal government? Below are some answers.
While the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) oversees the public housing program, it is administered locally by about 3,100 public housing agencies across the United States. The local public housing agency that administers Potomac Gardens and indeed all of D.C.’s public housing complexes is the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA). Most public housing agencies own and manage their public housing developments themselves, but some contract with private management companies. DCHA does not manage Potomac Gardens itself; management of the property has been contracted out to CT Management.
All of this information, still leaves unanswered the question, where do the funds for the replacement of playgrounds in public housing developments like Potomac Gardens come from? The federal government funds public housing through two main streams: (1) the Public Housing Operating Fund, which is intended to cover the gap between the rents that public housing tenants pay and the developments’ operating costs (such as maintenance and security); and (2) the Public Housing Capital Fund, which funds renovation of developments and replacement of items such as appliances and heating and cooling equipment.
The purchase and installation of a new playground can easily cost more than $100,000. According to the US Department of Housing Operating Fund Budget for 2016 the D.C. Housing Authority will receive about $6,164 per unit to cover the gap between the rents that public housing tenants pay and the development’s actual operating cost. HUD’s Annual Budget does not explicitly state that District gets $6,164 per unit from the Operating Fund. The total budget for the Public Housing Operating Fund in 2015 was $4.44 billion. The share that goes to the District of Columbia Housing Authority is 1.1 percent or $48.84 million. The District of Columbia Housing Authority manages 7,924 units. Divide the $48.84 million by 7,924 units and you get $6,164 per unit. Of course, DCHA doesn’t spend $6,164 on each unit. Most of the money goes to salaries and other overhead costs. But this figure gives us an idea what kind of money DCHA has to work with to meet the maintenance and operating needs of the District’s public housing. In any case, we can’t expect DCHA to allocate $100,000 from the Operating Fund to pay for a single playground in one housing complex.
It might be more logical for the money to come from the Public Housing Capital Fund. In fact, DCHA received $27 million from the Capital Fund in 2014 and an additional $34.4 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. However, the Captial Fund grants were probably used for renovations and replacements needed in a single, housing complex or for specific projects like lead abatement, renovations needed to bring DCHA properties up to accessibility standards or environmental sustainability initiatives. Most of the Recovery Act funding will go to enhance housing projects that have or will become mixed-income developments like the townhouses at Cappers Carrollsburg. Getting money from the Capital Fund or the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to replace a single playground in a 100 percent low-income housing development is highly unlikely.
So, what then? Clearly, the playground in the images above needs to be replaced or torn down all together. If the community within the Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex can’t expect help for a project like this from the District of Columbia Housing Authority, what do they do? That question will be answered in the next post…
Posted on behalf of the Office of the Tenant Advocate
Do you rent an apartment in the District of Columbia? Find out what your rights and responsibilities are. Spanish speakers welcome and encouraged to attend.
If you want to know ahead of time what D.C.’s development community plans to do with our city, consider attending this event.
Deputy Mayor’s Office for Planning and Economic Development presents:
“March Madness”
with special guest Mayor Muriel Bowser
Monday, March 30, 2015, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Lincoln Theatre at 1215 U St. NW
Doors open at 11 a.m. – Program starts at 11:30 a.m.
It’s that time of year. March Madness. On March 30, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development (DMPED), joined by the Department of Housing and Community Development and Department of Small and Local Business Development, will reveal its top seeds – in the form of new and upcoming projects soon to be available to D.C.’s development community.
At this event, DMPED and other District agencies will discuss the solicitation process and response requirements, and most importantly, provide a forum for interaction among potential team members across the community development sector.
Organizations in the following areas should consider attending:
• Real estate development teams
• Design & engineering consultants
• Architectural firms
• Housing
• General contractors
• Subcontractors
• Equity providers
• Lenders
• Capital sources
• Small businesses
The disposition of District assets requires local participation for District-based employees and service providers. This event provides an opportunity for dialogue among talented local Certified Business Enterprises (CBEs) and development professionals to create relationships for future respondent teams. The Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development encourages CBE’s with appropriate professional background to participate in this event.
Attendance at this event is not a requirement for submissions of interest for the projects.
*Please RSVP for each individual attendee from your organization. The Eventbrite tickets associated with registration are not necessary for entry into the Lincoln Theatre on the day of the event, but please RSVP to ensure we know you are joining us.
Sharply rising rents in the District have led to the virtual disappearance of low-cost private housing across the city, according to a new analysis by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute. Yet the District’s economy has left nearly half of its residents with stagnant incomes. As a result, a growing number of residents are forced to spend the majority of their income on rent and utilities, struggling each month to maintain stable housing and afford other necessities like food and transportation.
The new DCFPI report, Going, Going, Gone: DC’s Vanishing Affordable Housing, highlights the urgency of finding solutions to the District’s housing crisis. The Mayor and DC Council need to greatly increase investments to preserve the affordable apartments we have and to add new affordable housing to maintain the city’s economic vitality.
The number of low-cost apartments dropped nearly in half. The number of apartmentswith monthly rent and utilities below $800 fell from 58,000 in 2002 to only 33,000 in 2013, according to the report’s analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
It now appears the private market has very few, if any, low-cost units. The number of apartments with monthly costs below $800 roughly matches the number of federally and locally subsidized housing units. This suggests that subsidized housing is now virtually the only source of inexpensive apartments.
Rents have risen rapidly for virtually all residents. The impact has been greatest on low-income households who have not benefited from DC’s recent economic growth. Increasingly, moderate-income households also struggle to afford rent and utilities.
Two-thirds of low-income households – with incomes under $32,000 for a family of four – spend more than half their income on housing.
Even renters with incomes up to $54,000 are struggling, as one in three of these households pays the majority of its income towards rent.
The lack of affordable housing affects the ability of residents to thrive and the city to remain economically strong. Families that spend the majority of their limited budget on housing costs are forced to cut other necessities like food, health care, and transportation. The high cost of housing leads families to live in substandard housing, with problems like mold or rodents, and forces many to move frequently. Unstable and unhealthy housing puts stress on families that makes it hard for children to focus at school and for parents to keep a job, and leaves many at risk of homelessness.
The District’s leaders need to actively pursue policies that keep the few affordable apartments that remain available, while also adding to the supply of low-cost rental options. This includes funding important programs like the city’s local rent supplement program and the Housing Production Trust Fund. This could also mean strengthening Inclusionary Zoning rules so that new housing developments include more affordable options for low- and moderate-income residents.
Last week’s post A Place to Play: Potomac Gardens, Public Housing and Our Children made clear that the playground at the Potomac Gardens public housing complex had seen better days. The children who live in Potomac Gardens had stopped using it and their parents wanted it replaced. But the owners of the property, the District of Columbia Housing Authority, really couldn’t come up with the money to make that happen.
Residents vote on playground design.
