By Liane Scott, on May 12th, 2015 
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? . . . → Read More: A Place to Play: Potomac Gardens, Public Housing and Our Kids
By Liane Scott, on June 20th, 2011 
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.
By Liane Scott, on August 5th, 2010 
Tenants Protest Outside of NLHA Headquarters
We all know that the supply of quality affordable housing in the District of Columbia is dwindling and has been for decades. This is not a problem unique to the District of Columbia, nor is it only a problem during bad economic times. Finding affordable housing during the relatively lucrative 90s, for instance, was not much easier than it is now.
Fortunately, there are federal programs that subsidize the cost of housing that local governments can use to help low- and moderate-income residents. The amount of affordable housing available dependents in part on regulations that determine things like how many units of an apartment building must be designated affordable and how low the rent must be before it fits into that category.
Landlords are often able to purchase buildings for relatively little money if they make a contract with a city or other jurisdiction to provide affordable housing. These property owners are aware of the regulations they must follow to remain in compliance with the subsidy program, but the tenants who make their homes in their buildings are often left in the dark.
The National Alliance of Hud Tenants is working to change that fact. Empower DC intern Chantal Taylor caught them in action as they took their case to the National Leased Housing Association on K Street.
By Liane Scott, on June 29th, 2010 
For the homeowner who’s been beholden to the bank for 30 years, finally paying off that mortgage is definitely a good thing. But when a landlord who has a contract with HUD to provide affordable apartments, pays off his or her debt to the bank, not everybody wins.
Everybody knows that DC has an affordable housing crisis. One source of housing for moderate and low-income residents of Washington, DC has been apartments regulated by the department of Housing and Urban Development. DC residents whose income is less than the median of $57,936 have turned to HUD for rent subsidized apartments. Property owners, looking for a good deal on a multifamily unit have bought these buildings at reduced rates. In exchange, they made the apartments available to residents receiving rental assistance. That arrangement stands for as long as the mortgage on the property is still in service, but once the building belongs to the landlord outright, he or she can do whatever they want with it. So, where does that leave the residents who live in the property?
Empower DC’s Linda Leaks is educating tenants who live in HUD properties whose mortgages are on the verge of expiration about their rights, and lobbying Congress to implement legislation that would safeguard low- and moderate-income tenants. WPFW reporter Peter Tucker interviewed her on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. It’s another story that you won’t hear on the nightly news or even read about in the Washington Post, but we have it here. A Massive Maturing of Mortgages [audio:http://www.grassrootsdc.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Linda-Leaks-6-13-101.mp3]
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