Support Affordable Housing by Supporting Museum Square Tenants

By Liane Scott, on July 19th, 2015

Museum Square is a Section 8 apartment complex in the Chinatown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The Section 8 or Housing Choice Voucher Program is a federal program that assists very low-income families, the elderly and the disabled who cannot afford decent, safe and sanitary housing in the private market. Since housing assistance is provided on behalf of the family or individual, participants are free to choose any housing that meets the requirements of the program and are not limited to units located in subsidized housing projects. Sounds great, doesn’t it? The problem is that the vast majority of housing in the District doesn’t meet the requirement simply because landlords refuse to accept Housing Choice vouchers.

Housing Choice vouchers are traditionally accepted in low-income communities. The District’s neighborhoods are gentrifying so quickly that there are very few low-income communities left. When an otherwise low-income or working class community like Chinatown is “developed,” landlords who have contracts with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to accept Housing Choice or Section 8 vouchers often decide not to renew their contract. Once the contract runs out, they can sell the property to a developer who will kick out all of the voucher holders and move in tenants who can afford whatever rent they want to charge without government assistance. We call this displacement. But it doesn’t have to happen.

We, the people of DC, can take a stand for development without displacement, and help tenants stay in their homes!

Jews United for Justice, Andy Shallal, and Think Local First DC are throwing a party for neighbors and local businesses to celebrate and support the tenants of Museum Square in their struggle.

Celebrating the Museum Square Community Monday July 20, 2015 6:00 PM – 8:00 PM Busboys and Poets (5th and K location) 1025 5th Street NW

When the Williamsburg, Va-based Bush Companies (also known as the W.H.H. Trice & Company, but neither has any meaningful online presence) decided they didn’t want to renew their Section 8 contract for the Museum Square Apartment complex, they informed the tenants. Because 70% of the tenants in the 312-unit complex are Chinese immigrants many of whom have limited English, they relied on the remaining 30%, most of whom are African-American to explain the meaning of the eviction letter that the Bush Companies had placed under their doors.

The tenants had two distinct choices, they could take their Housing Choice vouchers to another landlord or they could try and take advantage of the city’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act or TOPA. According to this legislation, Museum Square residents would be able to stay in their homes if they or a nonprofit developer willing to work with them, could come up with the $250 million dollars that the Bush Companies were asking for the property. Of course, if each household had $800,000 to pay for their apartments, they could bypass the nonprofit developer all together.

Turns out none of them wanted to leave their homes, but the $250 million dollars that the Bush Companies was asking for was more than any reasonable non-profit developer would try and raise. So the tenants went with a third option. They sued the Bush Companies for violating TOPA. Their case was based on the assumption that the price for the building was set astronomically high so that the tenants couldn’t possibly raise the money. Last year the property was valued at $36 million. So, it’s also unlikely that a for profit developer would make an offer of anything close to $250 million for the building. Not selling the building would allow the Bush Company to evict the low-rent tenants, tear the building down, build high-priced luxury condos and make a ridiculous profit in the process.

D.C.’s city council was also alarmed by the $250 million price tag. Was this loophole in TOPA the beginning of a new trend that would allow landlords a way out of their Section 8 contracts without the constraints of TOPA? In response, the city passed emergency legislation they hoped would stop the Bush Companies from selling or tearing down the property. The Bush Company in turn sued the city, claiming that the law singled them out. It didn’t work. In April of this year, a judge rejected the $250 million price tag, ruling that it was not a “bonafide offer of sale.” But the fight is not over. Despite claiming that they no longer want out of their Section 8 contract, the Bush Companies has applied . . . → Read More: Support Affordable Housing by Supporting Museum Square Tenants

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Chinatown to Lose More Affordable Housing

By Caroline, on July 14th, 2014

Something is missing from Washington DC’s Chinatown. Of course we can all notice the elaborate friendship arch topped with characteristic pagoda style roofing, and the yearly Chinese New Year festival. There’s a handful of bustling restaurants and decorations throughout its streets, and Chinese characters adorn each of the storefronts and street signs throughout the few blocks that constitute this cultural icon in our nation’s capital. But despite the Chinese decor, Chinese shop displays, and Chinese food, what’s becoming increasingly hard to find in Chinatown are Chinese people. The very human beings responsible for the existence of this much loved and increasingly desirable destination for so many. And with recent news of plans to demolish Museum Square, one of the two remaining buildings still home to low-income residents in Chinatown as well as the majority of the district’s Chinese population, it seems that those left are being perpetually pushed towards displacement.

Museum Square sits at 401 K Street NW, today surrounded by many new buildings of luxury apartments and condos, grocery stores, restaurants from Subway to Sweetgreen to wine bars and gourmet eateries, all interspersed throughout a plethora of new development. The building holds a Section 8 subsidy contract, and families living in its 302 units pay rent that is adjusted to be no more than 30% of their average monthly income. This contract has preserved most of the only remaining rental housing in the neighborhood still available to low income residents in the face of a wave of development and soaring housing prices that leave no corner of Chinatown unturned.

In October of 2013 tenants received a notice explaining that the owner of the building intended to terminate their contract with HUD, thus ending all meaningful affordability requirements. More recently tenants were issued another notice which revealed plans to demolish the building. The notice also offered tenants of Museum Square the opportunity to purchase the property, and was posted throughout the building’s hallways per the provisions of DC’s Rental Housing Act. This act has made the district notorious for its “tenant-friendly” laws, which require that before any rental property in the district can be sold or demolished, it must first be offered to the tenants who call it home. Theoretically, this creates opportunities for tenant ownership and long term affordability of rental property in DC, and could be instrumental for tenants like those of Museum Square who wish to preserve their building as affordable. But it only seems that way before taking into account the $250 million that it would cost to acquire the building, which works out to just over $827,800 per unit. In reality, the astronomically inflated price tags that developers are able to attach to these properties in up-and-coming areas of the city often render tenant purchase rights virtually useless for tenant ownership, or to aid tenants in avoiding displacement by maintaining affordable rents throughout the city.

In addition to the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, or TOPA, owners of buildings where at least 25% of apartments have rents considered to be affordable are also required to issue DOPA notices. Per the District Opportunity to Purchase Act, properties that are home to low-income tenants are offered to the city before they can be sold or demolished (in addition to being offered to tenants) as another opportunity to preserve affordable rents in DC. But out of the vast majority of rental properties sold in the district each year which qualify as affordable based on rent levels, only a tiny fraction comply with this part of the law requiring that they be offered to the district. And of the few that have complied over the years and issued the appropriate notices to the district, the city has not sent a single response to a DOPA notice, rendering DOPA another of the district’s efforts to preserve affordable housing that doesn’t extend beyond paper. If it were actually utilized, DOPA could be a beneficial tool to protect its residents’ housing in the face of economic interests in development that cause hundreds upon hundreds of people to be displaced each year. But again, to date this tool goes completely unused.

Washington DC’s Chinatown hasn’t always been such an expensive hot spot in the city. Even before the recent wave of gentrification that has resulted in a rapid drop in the number of Chinese businesses and residents, Chinatown has had a turbulent history of displacement and endurance. During the development of the Federal Triangle, DC’s original Chinatown was uprooted completely. Once established . . . → Read More: Chinatown to Lose More Affordable Housing

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