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Tenant Summit 2013! A great opportunity to become acquainted with people and nonprofit organizations throughout the city that work with tenants and tenant groups on a number of issues providing legal advice, administering rental assistance programs, working to improve housing conditions, and otherwise seeking to prevent displacement in all of DC. Come to find out what services are available to you, and learn about your rights as a DC tenant! Free registration here. 
Say Ward 8 public housing tenants after winning a victory over the DC Housing Authority. Judge calls the Groundbreaking Tenants’ Right Case HIGHLAND TOGETHER WE STAND VS. DC HOUSING AUTHORITY “Unchartered Territory” Schyla Pondexter-Moore with kids from the neighborhood as they celebrate her daughter’s birthday. Schyla Pondexter-Moore, a Ward 8 public housing resident and mother of four, became fearful for her community when the DC Housing Authority informed tenants back in 2010 that Highland Dwellings would be undergoing “complete, substantial, modernization” and everyone on the property would have to move very quickly. After researching Hope VI and finding out about the scope of displacement under the program, and encouraged by her ANC Commissioner K. Armstead, Schyla took action and founded the organization Highland Together We Stand, filing suit against the DC Housing Authority (DCHA) and fighting for over a year to achieve the victory of October 9th 2012 when DCHA settled with Highland Tenants. Now working as an Affordable Housing Organizer for the community based organization Empower DC, Schyla is taking her message to other public housing communities throughout the District. “You can fight back. You can save your housing. You have rights. Look at what we did at Highland. You can do that too, and Empower DC is here to help.” The number of public housing units in Washington DC has been drastically cut over the years. Where there used to be at least Schyla Pondexter-Moore’s family is forced to move from Highland Dwellings while renovations are underway. At the time, Schyla was not certain they’d be able to return. 20,000 units of public housing (before formal recognition of HOPE VI legislation in 1998) there are now only about 8,000. Public housing complexes have been demolished and redeveloped WITHOUT providing the often-promised one-for-one replacement of public housing units on the properties. Properties such as Valley Green, Arthur Cappers, Frederick Douglass, Stanton Dwellings, Parkside, Temple Courts, Sheridan Terrace, Ellen Wilson and more, most of which are located in Wards 7 & 8, have been demolished and redeveloped for private use.. Highland Together We Stand Meeting attended by ANC Representative K. Armstead. But the residents of the 208-unit Highland Dwellings community in Ward 8 decided to organize and fight back rather than risk displacement. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, after a year and half of back and forth litigation, the DC Housing Authority agreed to a settlement which presiding Judge Zeldon called “unchartered territory,” and which secures two major victories in the fight to preserve public housing: In accordance with settlement guidelines, Highland Dwelling “shall remain a public housing property for 40 years” even after extensive renovation and modernization of Highland Dwellings, which is being funded both publicly and privately, is complete. In addition, “All residents at Highland Dwellings shall be afforded the benefit of the terms and conditions applicable to all other public housing complexes in the District of Columbia as those terms and conditions are defined by federal and District of Columbia laws and regulation governing the public housing program.“ In other words, tenants will have the same rights as tenants in all other public housing complexes despite the involvement of private developers. The 208 units at Highland Dwellings for all intents and purposes will remain for PUBLIC HOUSING after renovations for 40 years. There can be no new criteria set forth that is not applicable to public housing regulations–for example, tenants cannot be asked to pay utilities, pay more than 30% of their income, meet minimum income requirements, undergo credit checks, or other such provisions which have been common in other redevelopment projects and present clear barriers to public housing tenants returning after modernization. Highland Together We Stand came up with a list of demands that became the basis of their lawsuit. The settlement also states, “Current Residents and Former Residents shall have the right of first refusal to return to Highland Dwellings.” Residents sought and won this legally binding written agreement in order to ensure that all residents living on the property prior to the renovation will be able to return to the property after the renovation is complete. “We fought a good fight. Housing knew what they did was unjust and a lot of wrong doing. Myself and other tenants in Highland Dwellings fought back and now I can say justice was served,” said Ms. Renee Patterson, another plaintiff in the case. There have been at least . . . → Read More: Gentrification Stops Here! Crossposted from Street Sense, written by Mary Otto Rents could be raised for some of the nation’s poorest tenants under a provision of a bill now working its way through Congress. A draft version of a bill entitled the Affordable Housing and Self-Sufficiency Improvement Act, released on Jan. 13 would remove a cap in place since 1998, allowing the housing secretary and public housing landlords to boost rents in housing projects and project-based Section 8 apartments. As Street Sense was going to press on the evening of Jan. 17, housing advocates were expected to convene a meeting at the Southeast Branch Public Library to discuss the possible impact of the bill with public housing tenants. “I’m going to say to the tenants to go try and meet with the Subcommittee Chairwoman, Congresswoman Biggert, and tell her that there are families who cannot afford an increase in minimum rent, whose housing stability will be threatened by a minimum rent policy that has no cap,” said National Low Income Housing Coalition vice president Linda Couch, a scheduled speaker at the event, organized by the District of Columbia Grassroots Empowerment Project. A spokesperson for Congresswoman Judy Biggert, an Illinois Republican, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity, did not return calls for comment. But Laquita Eddie, a resident and community board president at Faircliff Plaza West, a federally-subsidized project-based Section 8 apartment complex in Columbia Heights, predicted that a rent increase would further stretch poor tenants who are already at the breaking point. “No good can come out of this,” said Eddie. She works at a grocery store and pays more than the minimum rent at her complex. Yet with two sons to support, the challenge to make ends meet is constant. “I’m still struggling, buying food and keeping my lights on,” she said. And many of her neighbors are surviving on less. If the rent of the poorest among them is increased, they could face desperate choices, Eddie said. “You are talking about a mom trying to feed her kids. “ In the District, approximately 20,000 residents live in public housing, according to DC Housing Authority data, but not all of them would be affected by the bill. While the D.C. Housing Authority has the freedom to set its own minimum rents under the federal “Moving to Work” program, residents of the city’s privately-owned project-based Section 8 units would fall under the draft law. As of Nov, 2011, the District had active contracts for 10,457 units of Project-Based Section 8 housing, according to data contained on the website of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD. Project-based Section 8 tenants typically pay 30 percent of their monthly income toward rent, with rental assistance making up the difference between what the tenants can afford and the approved rent. But even tenants with very little or no income are required to pay something. Currently, if 30 percent of a tenant’s income is less than $50, he or she can be charged a a minimum rent of up to $50 a month. Under the draft of the new law, the cap on the minimum rent would be lifted. The new minimum rent would be set at at least $69.45, and would be annually indexed to inflation. . “The current HUD secretary, or the next one could go beyond,” said Couch. With the cap removed, “there is no limit.” A HUD spokeswoman said she could not comment on the pending legislation. The bill, which may be scheduled for markup in coming weeks, is part of larger ongoing reform efforts that have targeted rental assistance programs run by HUD. Housing officials and lawmakers say the reforms are intended to preserve and expand affordable housing opportunities. The nation’s public housing system, which currently serves more than 4 million elderly, disabled, homeless, poor and working individuals and families and subsidizes over one million Project-Based Section 8 apartments, is facing an historic level of need, according to Assistant HUD Secretary Sandra B. Henriquez, who testified in June before Biggert’s Insurance, Housing and Community Opportunity subcommittee. Henriquez said HUD’s 2011 “Worst Case Housing Needs” Study showed a 20 percent increase in renters paying more than half their income in rent, living in severely inadequate conditions, or both, between 2007 and 2009. “The demand on our rental programs has been steadily increasing as incomes have dropped and homes have been lost to foreclosure,” she told the lawmakers. At Faircliff Plaza West, Santiago DeAngulo has seen . . . → Read More: Higher Rents for Poorest Tenants |
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