Empower DC at the Mayor’s One City Citizens’ Summit

By Liane Scott, on February 14th, 2012

So, Empower DC went to Mayor Gray’s One City Citizen Summit last Saturday. In the mayor’s invitation to the residents of the District of Columbia, he described the summit as “a frank and open conversation about what needs to be done to create Washington, DC as One City.” He also promised that we would have the opportunity to:

• Learn about current efforts to grow our economy, improve our schools, create more jobs, and other initiatives underway to move our city forward • Discuss some of the biggest challenges that prevent Washington from becoming truly One City • Share your views in small group discussions and listen to neighbors from every part of the District • Vote on specific priorities for action in the coming year • Brainstorm new ideas about how the D.C. Government can work more effectively with its citizens • Identify ways you can be more involved in future efforts to create a more unified city that works for everyone

In keeping with those lofty goals, Empower DC put together two fact sheets, one with information about the school closings that are likely to occur and the other about the loss of affordable housing in the city. As it turns out, those hand outs were considered so subversive that many of Empower DC’s members were threatened with arrest should they distribute those materials in the summit. So much for a frank and open conversation Mayor Gray! Although, many felt the summit was genuinely participatory, others though Gray was using the summit as an opportunity to present his plans to the public in the hopes that they would simply rubber stamp his agenda. One such voice was Empower DC education organizer Daniel del Pielago who is quoted in the Washington Post. Only time will tell if any of the independent ideas generated in the small group discussions will actually bear fruit. We will explore some of those independent ideas in future posts related to this subject. For now watch the video. Decide for yourself if it represents the real-time grassroots democracy that Mayor Gray believes the summit achieved.

At the risk of offending the Gray Administration, who seems to think they have a monopoly on how to improve the city despite rhetoric that says the exact opposite, here’s a link to Empower DC’s “subversive” literature the Citizens Summit Hand Out, which was the cause of all the above controversy. In it we suggest that the 55 percent rise in the cost of housing since 2007 should prompt the Mayor to use funding from the newly found $240 million surplus to fully fund the housing production trust fund in order to protect and preserve low and moderate cost housing. Actually enforcing the Inclusionary Zoning Law which REQUIRES developers to include low and moderately priced housing in their high end developments wouldn’t hurt either. Or that because most DC families who have an income less than $2500 a month are paying over 60% of that income on housing, maybe Mayor Gray should use funding from the newly found $240 million surplus to fully fund (ERAP) Emergency Rental Assistance Program to help prevent the evictions of low-income residents. Should the Gray Administration be afraid of our suggestion that the IFF study is flawed and that a moratorium should be placed on all school closings? Download and judge for yourself.

 

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March to Save Homeless Services

By Sean Furmage, on May 25th, 2011

Homeless service advocates marching to the Wilson Building. (Photo by Roshan Ghimire).

On May 18th, around 100 homeless people and homeless advocates gathered at the Community for Creative Non-Violence (CCNV) shelter to participate in the “March to Save Homeless Services”. This event was organized to protest budget cuts that could lead to the loss of funding for a number of homeless services and the closing of city shelters next April. After marching along E street to the Wilson Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, the group met with a “Reality Tour” event organized by Save Our Safety Net DC. The marchers joined with activists interested in restoring funding for all social service programs, and not just homeless services. Over 200 people crammed into the Wilson Building to protest budget cuts soon to be introduced by Mayor Vincent Gray’s city council. If these cuts go through, vital social services for some of DC’s most vulnerable residents will be lost.

Listen to our audio report of the event!

Photo by Roshan Ghimire.

Binnie and I spoke to Robert Warren, a formerly homeless advocate for the People’s Fairness Coalition, and Blair Rush, a current CCNV shelter resident, to get their views on the budget cuts and what it will mean to them. Robert has had problems with the Housing and Urban Development Department’s Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP) which provides assistance with rent to individuals and families at risk of becoming homeless as well as those exiting homelessness. As federally funded programs like the HPRP fail to provide sustainable assistance to people facing homelessness, local cuts to homeless services in DC will only make things worse for residents.

Robert Warren inside the Wilson Building. (Photo by Hazal Yolga).

Blair Rush interviewed with her service dog Kelo inside the Wilson Building. (Photo by Hazal Yolga).

Blair faces having her Interim Disability Assistance (IDA) cut off. Initially, Mayor Gray’s proposed budget cuts sought to eliminate all funding for the Interim Disability Program. Although Chairman Kwame Brown’s as yet unfunded proposals would result in some funding being restored for IDA, there are still over three million dollars of cuts on the table. This will mean hundreds of people will lose their IDA income and over a thousand will remain on a long waiting list. IDA provides a lifeline for many DC residents and cutting it will have devastating results for over a thousand people who currently receive it.

The DC Fiscal Policy Institute notes that these budget cuts are coming at a time when a large number of low-income DC residents are still experiencing unemployment and are unable to provide for themselves and their families in the wake of the recession. Cuts to homeless and other safety net services in the District will only worsen the situation for homeless, unemployed, low-income and struggling residents.

Save our Safety Net DC is organizing an emergency action where activists will gather again at the Wilson Building at noon on Tuesday, May 24th. This will be the last chance to ask the city council to vote against 19 million dollars of budget cuts to social services. So far, Chairman Kwame Brown has refused to raise taxes at all for DC residents. Activists from Save our Safety Net DC and other DC residents and advocates for restoring funding for social services argue that these harmful budget cuts could be avoided through a small increase in income tax for those residents earning in excess of 100,000 dollars per year. This would be an alternative to what many claim is the balancing of the budget on the backs of the poor.

People crowd into the corridors of the Wilson building outside councilmembers' offices. (Photo by Roshan Ghimire).

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What’s Goin’ On In Ivy City?

By Liane Scott, on May 3rd, 2011

According to Wikipedia, Ivy City is a small Washington, DC neighborhood located on a triangular strip of land in the central part of DC’s Northeast quadrant. It’s bounded by New York Avenue to the northwest, West Virginia Avenue to the east, and Mt. Olivet Road to the south. The neighborhood is surrounded on all sides by significant landmarks: Gallaudet University (across Mt. Olivet Rd.), Mt. Olivet Cemetery (across West Virginia Ave.), and Amtrak’s Ivy City yard (across New York Ave.).

Better Days in Ivy City

I give you all this information because unlike Columbia Heights or Anacostia, Ivy City is not well-known. It has long been a tight-knit, working-class, African-American community with a proud history. But as the economy changed–the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad went away, warehouses closed down–what was once a thriving neighborhood became blighted.

This of course is not uncommon. Many of the District’s neighborhoods have their own histories of decline, but for some revitalization or outright gentrification has turned things around. While U Street, Georgia Avenue and even the long-neglected H Street corridor have seen major changes, revitalization projects in Ivy City have been proposed, promised and abandoned.

Those who look closely at revitalization in neighborhoods like Columbia Heights and Shaw may consider the residents of Ivy City fortunate. Relatively few native or even long-term residents have been able to remain in those other neighborhoods. Ivy City may not have the amenities that come with gentrification but it has not had the displacement either. Question is, will that last. The city is again planning projects that would promise revitalization, but will it come without displacement?

That is the question first time filmmaker Sean Furmage is preparing to answer in a documentary about Ivy City that he’s recently begun working on through the Grassroots Media Project. The project will be a part of his course work as a PhD candidate at American University. An introduction to the project is posted here. In it Furmage focuses on two recently proposed Ivy City redevelopment projects. The first, the Adaptive Reuse of Alexander Crummell School was scheduled to begin last summer, but it looks now like the city is trying to surplus the school instead. The other is the Ivy City Special Demonstration Project which will bring 58 units of “affordable” housing to the community, but it is unclear how many of those units will ultimately be awarded to current community members.

Furmage’s documentary will look at the struggles between local residents and the city council, developers and non-profits and their contrasting visions for the future of Ivy City. What’s posted here gives you a flavor of the finished documentary, which we hope will be complete by this fall.

Empower DC is currently seeking out residents of Ivy City to join the campaign to save the historic Alexander Crummell School from for-profit developers. As is clear from the video, Ivy City residents who have the time and inclination to be active want to keep Crummell as PUBLIC property, for use by the community and residents city-wide – to RESTORE the school for uses that benefit the community, serve community needs and preserve the history of the school and community. For more information, and particularly if you know anyone from Ivy City, join the Facebook campaign to save Crummell School.

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