By Liane Scott, on May 18th, 2015 
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 . . . → Read More: Potomac Gardens Gets New Playground… At Last
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 Guest Contributor, on April 9th, 2014 
Cross-Posted from Sociology in My Neighborhood: DC Ward 6 Written by Johanna Bockman
I was struck by this comment in the Washington City Paper (Chatter, Shelter Skelter, 3/21/14) a week or two ago:
[DC] Public officials attributed the crisis to a confluence of little affordable housing and the vapor trails of the Great Recession. Reader spmoore offered a diagnosis: “The demolition and elimination of thousands of public housing units in the last 10 to 15 years has resulted in a definite spike in family homelessness. There are simply less units to house low income families in need…Society and the city seems perfectly fine with demolishing public housing, negatively stereotyping public housing, and then act so concerned about the homeless spike.”
An apartment in public housing is a whole lot better than being homeless. I happened to have dinner in Potomac Gardens on Tuesday evening. It was a great time eating, talking, and, yes, visioning with a small group of Potomac Gardens residents, local homeowners, and grassroots community organizers. This was part of Art in Praxis’ experiment, “The Future of [Your] Street” “to activate neighbors in collectively shaping the kind of community they want to live in and be a part of.” Potomac Gardens and Hopkins as public housing projects were an essential part of this vision.
The dinner guests discussed ideas that so closely resembled those concepts used in urban sociology, such as Logan and Molotch’s Urban Fortunes. They spoke about the difficulties caused by a mindset focused on protecting or increasing housing values and/or on renovating houses as an investment, especially real estate agents and investment groups seeking to maximize their investments (exchange value), as opposed to the mindset of those focused on having a home and building a community to satisfy social and personal needs (use value)(see pp. 1-2 of Urban Fortunes). Many people have a mix of these, but renters have the most interest in use value, of course. As a result, more of the neighborhood was being mobilized for those with higher incomes and for investors than for renters, especially low-income renters, and those homeowners focused more on use value.
One Potomac Gardens resident spoke so thoughtfully about how he wanted more interactions with the neighborhood like this dinner because he felt that those who were new to the neighborhood needed to know things (such as, I think, the norms and folkways of the neighborhood) to feel more comfortable in the neighborhood. This knowledge would allow people to move beyond their imaginations (or common assumptions) and fears about public housing and about the neighborhood (like assumptions about cities based on “The Wire“). This might allow for a more inclusive discussion about The Future of Our Street/Community.
Are you interested in joining in the visioning, in which public housing is fundamental to the vision?
By Grassroots DC, on February 14th, 2014 
Cross-posted from Sociology in My Neighborhood: DC Ward Six by Johanna Bockman
Back in December 2012, I took a look at the Wikipedia page for Potomac Gardens public housing at 13th and Pennsylvania Ave, SE. At that time, I was surprised by what I read:
The existing [Wikipedia] page surprised me because it focused exclusively on 1) the potential replacement of the buildings either with Marine barracks or mixed-income housing and 2) crime in the area (under the only category of “Incidents”). There was no discussion of what life might be like in Potomac Gardens, as well as no mention of people important to the community, significant sites within the property, or important events or activities. There was also no discussion of how life in Potomac Gardens may have changed over time. In general, the page seemed to be written from the point of view of people unconnected with those living in Potomac Gardens. Yes, those living inside and outside Potomac Gardens have a great interest in the potential redevelopment plans, but the page does not capture much about Potomac Gardens. Without knowledge of the life within Potomac Gardens, it becomes very easy to argue that Potomac Gardens should be dismantled, since it appears to have no value or significance.
In that post, you can see what the original Wikipedia page looked like. I made some additions to try to expand the perspective of the page. Others have since revised it further. However, I knew that those living in Potomac Gardens would be the ideal editors of the Potomac Gardens Wikipedia page.
A couple of weeks ago, I got to visit Grassroots DC‘s Wednesday evening computer class in Potomac Gardens. The computer class had seven adult students learning how to use computers to do email, explore the internet, write letters, resumes, produce documents, etc. Earlier the class had written a letter to Councilmember Tommy Wells, asking for help with the former recreation center in Potomac Gardens. This meeting, we were going to update the Potomac Gardens Wikipedia page!
I handed out this guide, which anyone can use:
After they logged into Wikipedia at their computers, there was an immediate debate about whether Potomac Gardens ever had the nickname “Magic City.” Someone told me that it had been called this, and months ago I had added it in the Wikipedia page. While one person vaguely remember this name, everyone agreed that Potomac Gardens had only one nickname: “The Gardens.” So, two of the students changed that on two different parts of the page.
A discussion broke out about how anyone could update the page. Someone suggested that the history on the page must therefore be false. Someone else referred to a fact about Potomac Gardens that was true. Another asked, how do you know that? She said, I know it from the Wikipedia page. I admitted that I had written most of the page. One person turned to me quite surprised: but you don’t live here. How do you know this information? Another student said, you did research? I then asked, how can we get information about the history of Potomac Gardens, how can we get historical information? Some said that they could ask some older residents. Others said that one could Google for more information. I said that there was almost no information on the web about Potomac Gardens’ history. So, they would have to research and write it themselves.
The discussion was a professor’s dream discussion. The class became incredibly loud as the very nature of history was debated along with the topics and details they each wanted to include in the page. It was agreed that a section called “Community Life” would be added. A student added this section, while other students wrote up different paragraphs in Word, which they then posted to the new section. Actually, more correctly, most of them wrote up their parts in beautiful handwriting and then typed it up in Word. The non-profit organizations operating on “Community Row” in Potomac Gardens and the old recreation center came to life. One of the senior residents revealed the pride and joy of the senior building — the greeter system they had implemented themselves (see the page for details).
So, it was a fantastic time. The experience made very clear how history writing reflects one’s perspective. The glorious University of Maryland, College Park, sociologist Patricia Hill Collins has contributed her work on “intersectionality” to feminist standpoint theory, which is valuable when thinking about how one’s . . . → Read More: Writing History with Potomac Gardens Residents
By Grassroots DC, on January 15th, 2014 
Cross-posted from Sociology In My Neighborhood: DC Ward Six Written by Johanna Bockman
In 1974, the Washington Metropolitan Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) published its architectural guidebook with “Twenty Walking and Motoring tours of Washington and the Vicinity.” Within its Southeast Washington tour, you could start at the Navy Yard and Marine Barracks, go by the Maples (the old Friendship House), St. Mark’s Church [as well as other sites], Eastern Market, Philadelphia Row, Potomac Gardens, and finish up at the Congressional Cemetery.
Yes, along with Eastern Market, Philadelphia Row, and the Congressional Cemetery, Potomac Gardens public housing project is worth a visit for the architecturally interested:
The text reads:
Potomac Gardens Apartments 1225 G Street, S.E., 1967 — Metcalf and Associates. There are 352 low-rent apartments in 14 buildings; 144 of the units were designed especially for the elderly. The project includes recreational, administrative and geriatric facilities.
In fact, in 1971, the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the regional business association, gave its Award for Excellence in Architecture to the builder, Edward M. Crough, Inc., and the architectural firm, Metcalf and Associates, of Potomac Gardens. The Edward M. Crough Center for Architectural Studies at Catholic University is named after Potomac Gardens’ builder.[1]
Maybe we can return to the 1974 perspective and take a new look at Potomac Gardens as an architectural asset.
P.S. Thanks to our neighbors Sandy and Barry for finding this book and its reference to Potomac Gardens!
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