By Liane Scott, on January 28th, 2015 
In January 2014, a randomly selected group of Potomac Gardens’ and Capitol Hill residents who live in the townhouses and market-rate apartments and condominiums surrounding Potomac Gardens found the following letter in their mailbox or attached to their door.
Hello Neighbor-
As a resident of Potomac Gardens and/or Capitol Hill, your opinions about the community are important. What are the neighborhood’s advantages? What are its shortcomings? What would make Capitol Hill a better place to live? With the support of the Humanities Council of Washington, Grassroots DC, a nonprofit that provides basic computer and media production training to low-income and working-class District residents, is producing a documentary about the changing demographics of Capitol Hill with a focus on Potomac Gardens and the area surrounding the public housing complex.
On (date here) between noon and 6pm, representatives of Grassroots DC, will conduct a survey on your block/in your building. The survey will be used to help us decide what issues to include in the documentary. We want to represent the viewpoint of Capitol Hill and Potomac Gardens residents as honestly as possible. Therefore, it is crucial that we get as many survey participants as we can.
We hope that you or someone else in your household will be available to take the survey on the afternoon of (date here). If you would like to participate but are not available at that time, please contact me, Grassroots DC’s coordinator Liane Scott at (202) 608-1376 or liane@grassrootsdc.org.
Thank you for your time.
Liane Scott Coordinator, Grassroots DC 1227 G Street SE, Ground Floor Washington, DC 20003 (202) 608-1376
As the letter indicates, teams of Grassroots DC members went door-to-door for about three months, in preparation for the documentary Potomac Gardens Inside and Out, which is a community-driven documentary project that explores the changing demographics of the Capitol Hill neighborhood surrounding the Potomac Gardens Public Housing Complex and the divide between those who live within Potomac Gardens and those who live outside of Potomac Gardens. What are the barriers to communication between the two groups and how can they be overcome? Here’s our trailer.
It took us about four months to complete the surveys. We began interviewing folks on video in the spring and summer. By the fall we were transcribing and editing the footage. This week, our website PotomacGardensInsideAndOut.com went live. There’s still much more to be done–more interviews, more editing, more surveys, etc. We’ll post updates about the project here, but for the most complete picture of the project, visit the site.
By Ronald Webster-Bey, on July 23rd, 2014 To you it may concern: I would like to share how I stay on target with my diet and eating the right foods to maintain my health. I know that I have two selves—the Moors refer to them as the higher self and the lower self. The higher self is the spirit seed of God, which lives within your soul inside your brain. The lower self, which is the body of desires influenced by your senses such as: sight, hearing, feeling, taste, and smell. Through these senses the body is able to determine what it cares for itself. You have to become acquainted with yourself. Think about your thought—before acting on it. Analyze your thought to see whether it is harmful or helpful to your health.
Plan to bring what you desire to eat when you are visiting someone. Be warned that they are likely not to have the type of food that you are dieting on or have the temperament to fix something just for you.
So, listening when I go to my Moorish meeting I bring my snack on Fridays such as: granola, mixed nuts, dates, raisins, sliced apples, and apple cider vinegar with water to keep my blood pressure down. At Moorish Sunday school class our host and friends usually fix eggs, grits, waffles, toast, and sausage for everyone. My appetite for this is good, but I know that the salt content in sausages will raise my blood pressure (which I know I will want to eat). Thus, I bring my own meal. Now, my wonderful host is happy in that everyone (including dieters) is fed and full.
Good News: God is great. By listening to the still small voice in my soul and controlling my body wants, and the help of my doctor, my heart is much better and my next appointment will be six months from now.
By Grassroots DC, on April 27th, 2014 
Cross-posted on behalf of Empower DC
CALL TO ACTION!!! Forward this message far and wide and join us for an important rally and then to pack the room for the DC Housing Authority budget hearing:
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 30 12 NOON WILSON BUILDING 1350 PENNSYLVANIA AVE, NW (Accessible by Federal Triangle or Metro Center Stations) Rally outside followed by packing room 412 Bring ID to enter
Bus transportation is being arranged from public housing communities. To request transportation, testimony support or for more information about how you or your organization can support the Public Housing Campaign contact Schyla at (202) 234-9119 x101 or housing@empowerdc.org.
WE MUST PRESERVE & IMPROVE DC’S TRADITIONAL PUBLIC HOUSING
We stand united in support of preserving and improving our traditional public housing communities which serve a critical role in the affordable housing landscape of DC. We support a moratorium on the emptying and demolition of currently occupied units. We support improving and reopening units that have been left vacant due to disrepair.
Traditional public housing is a public resource which must be managed to serve the needs of current and future residents who can not access other private and subsidized housing because of multiple barriers. Public housing is the only permanently affordable housing owned by the city which ensures housing is available to people based on their income, with no bottom threshold and without utility costs, where families can remain intact and residents are supported by tight knit social networks.
WE HAVE LOST TOO MUCH
Due to completed and planned demolitions of public housing through the federal HOPE VI and Choice Communities programs and DC’s “New Communities” program, DC’s public housing stock has been decimated in recent years from over 11,000 units to only about 7,000 remaining units – at least 500 of which are currently vacant due to disrepair or pending demolition. During the same time the need for truly affordable housing has increased and DC has quickly become an unaffordable city to live in for low income working people and the most disenfranchised families and individuals.
THE NEED IS GREAT
The desperate need for traditional public housing is evidenced by:
– 7,000+ residents experience homelessness on any given day in DC[i]. In March of 2014, the city had 827 families in shelters including 1,591 children.[ii]
– Over 70,000 people were on the city’s waiting list for affordable housing in DC when it was closed last April[iii]
– The loss of over half of DC’s low cost rental housing units in only 10 years time, from 70,600 units to only 34,500[iv]
– The market rate cost of housing has skyrocketed to $1,500 or more for a two bedroom apartment, for which one would need to earn $60,000 per year or $29 per hour to afford.[v]
Housing vouchers and the private market can not adequately replace the need for public housing. Neither can job training or education programs. The people currently served by DC’s public housing communities include:
– over 15,000 residents – over 50% of whom are above age 50 – 23% have disabilities – With an average household income of $13,000 per year, or the equivalent of 35 hours per week at minimum wage[vi] PUBLIC LAND FOR PUBLIC NEEDS
Traditional public housing is the only form of permanently affordable housing in DC that is on public land and held in the public trust to serve the needs of current and future generations. The extremely high cost of real estate in DC is a barrier to creating more truly affordable housing. Public land is a precious resource with which we are able to provide for the long-term needs of our city. These lands must no longer be privatized and converted into middle and upper income tracts with time-limited (usually only 15 years) affordability covenants. STOP DISPLACEMENT
The loss of traditional public housing is worsening DC’s homelessness crisis, and has contributed to the push-out of over 40,000 African American residents from our city within the time period of 2000-2010.[vii]
Public housing demolition and redevelopment is promoted by the “deconcentration myth” which assumes it is detrimental for low income residents to live in a clustered area, and that individual lives improve when residents are dispersed. These assumptions are not supported by concrete results, in fact several scholars have documented the detrimental impact of the loss of social networks, stable housing, sense of place and identity.[viii] The underlying stereotypes against public housing and its residents are discriminatory and blame people for . . . → Read More: Save Public Housing and Fund Needed Repairs Call To Action
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 Liane Scott, on January 8th, 2014 
Will McKinley III is a videographer/editor based out of Washington, D.C. He attended Morgan State University in Baltimore, MD with a concentration in TV Production. Below is a link to the first segment that he and his peeps put together for a new current affairs magazine television show about Washington, DC, called Metropolis: The District. Don’t be thrown by the message that says you can’t view the video here. Click on the box and it will take you straight to Vimeo.
http://vimeo.com/83507664
The video features the famous Goodman League and the current redevelopment plans for the neighborhood of Barry Farm. Learn who is responsible for the Goodman League’s rise to prominence. Affordable housing organizer Schyla Pondexter-Moore explains why traditional public housing is important to the fabric of Washington,DC. This is the kind of in-depth journalism that I’d love to see on DC’s local television stations. Too often the only reason television news producers head out to Barry Farms is for crime. Here’s hoping McKinley and his crew get funding for more of this excellent work!
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