10 02 2019

Vol. 16 Issue 24

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Oct. 2 - 15, 2019

Real Stories

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Real Change

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Anti-gentrification graffitti stenciled on the window of bank of america at the 1000 block of h Street northeast.

Originally founded as a street newspaper in 2003, Street Sense Media has evolved into a multimedia center using a range of creative platforms to spotlight solutions to homelessness and empower people in need. the men and women who work with us do much more than sell this paper: They use film, photography, theatre, illustration, and more to share their stories with our community.

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EVENts

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NEWs IN brIEF Barry Farm historic landmark application put on hold By clifforD saMuels clifford.samuels@streetsensemedia.org

Project Homeless Connect October 3, 2019 // 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. // D.C. Armory, 2001 East Capital Street SE (Stadium Armory Metro station) SERVICES: haircuts, light breakfast and lunch, Medical & foot care, hiv Screening, veterans assistance, voter registration, vital records. INFORMATION and REFERRALS: housing, employment, legal help.

SUPPLIES: hygiene kits, Socks, and more. Doors will close to new participants at 1 p.m.

GETTING THERE: Shuttles before 9 a.m. will depart every 30 minutes from Miriam’s kitchen, charlies Place and So Others Might eat. Shuttles all day (9 a.m. - 1 p.m.) will depart every 30 minutes from ccnv, Pat handy center, new york avenue Shelter, adams Shelter, harriet tubman Shelter, 801 east Shelter, So Others Might eat, n Street village, and the downtown day center. free parking is available for attendees directly across from the main entrance in lot 3.

MORE INFO: http://UnitedWayNCA.org/PHC

thurSday, Oct. 3

uPdateS Online at ich.dc.gOv

Saturday, Oct. 5

Back to Basics: The real estate development process and how you fit in

D.C. Interagency Council on Homelessness Meetings

Right to Housing Freedom School

Anacostia Neighborhood Library 1800 Good Hope Rd SE // 6:30 pm

Executive Committee Oct. 8, 1:30 pm // tbd * Likely 441 4th Street NW

how are our neighborhoods shaped and how do we influence that process? back to basics is a series of sessions designed to answer these questions. at this kick-off participants can ask questions and make suggestions for future topics.

MORE INFO: tinyurl.com/redc-b2b1

12 pm - 3 pm Thurgood Marshall Academy 2427 MLK Jr Ave SE

***List features only committee meetings. For issue-focused working group, contact ich.info@dc.gov.

explore the root and structural causes of displacement and highlight national and international examples of community resistance and community controlled models of land stewardship and housing.

MORE INFO: onedconline.org/ right_to_housing_freedom_school

Submit your event for publication by emailing editor@streetsensemedia.org

AUDIENCE EXCHANGE Patrick McGlone @McGlonePatrick

Nick Barracca @NBarracca

this morning, i chatted w/ @streetsensedc vendor eric about the impending closing of dc’s only halfway house for men (the topic of his article). @cce_for_dc and others have pressed for a halfway house solution here in the city.

recommendation from @cjane87 to elevate homelessness voice and uses @streetsensedc as a great example to humanize homelessness experience. #tribfest19

11:06 AM - 27 SEP 2019

3:59 PM - 26 SEP 2019

The future of the Barry Farm neighborhood remains uncertain as former tenants and their allies push for historic designation for a portion of the site and the District of Columbia Housing Authority tries to move forward with the planned redevelopment of the public housing units into a mixed-income community.

While DCHA cannot yet move forward on new construction, more than half of the residences have been demolished and all former tenants have been forced to relocate throughout the city.

In April, the Barry Farm Tenants and Allies Association filed an application with the Historic Preservation Office that would designate part of the area a historic landmark and spare 32 houses from demolition.

The original hearing date for this application, June 27, was pushed back twice at DCHA’s request. When it was held on July 25 there were not enough members of the Historic Preservation Review Board present to vote on the application after hearing public testimony and a second hearing was scheduled for Aug. 1. That hearing was again pushed back at DCHA’s request.

The Sept. 26 Historic Preservation Review Board hearing to consider this application began with the board chair asking representatives from the tenants and allies group and representatives for DCHA to state on the record their reasons for jointly requesting to defer the hearing. “The board is really interested in why, because we deferred this back in the beginning of August and we were hopeful that was going to result in some additional information from the housing authority,” said Marnique Heath, chair of the Historic Preservation Review Board. “We haven’t received anything since then. I’m hopeful now that this deferral has some substance behind it.”

According to Cynthia A. Giordano, an attorney representing the housing authority, meetings between the tenants and allies association and the housing authority had been held outside of the Historic Preservation Review Board hearings. “We have agreed that we would continue with our discussions with them around the plans for the redevelopment of this site, including historic aspects, and we’d like to continue with that dialogue,” Giordano stated.

The executive director of Empower D.C., a nonprofit advocacy group allied with the tenants association, spoke on behalf of BFTAA. “We do hope that we are getting some conversations going that could be fruitful,” said Parisa Norouzi. “We don’t know yet, but could be.”

The board urged BFTAA and the housing authority to “act with haste” to prevent potential deferrals in the future. The final vote from the board will be on Oct. 31.

Follow more headlines at StreetSenseMedia.org/news

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NEWs

Panel discussion highlights the need for cultural and historic preservation of Black District communities

By Gabrielle Wanneh Editorial Intern

I

n April, the hashtag #DontMuteDC gained widespread social media recognition and sparked a new movement following the brief silencing of go-go music that the Shaw MetroPCS store has played outside its doors since 1995. A resident of the Shay, a recently constructed high-end apartment complex, had made complaints that resulted in an order from parent company T-Mobile to bring the store’s speakers inside.

Hundreds of people quickly rallied outside of the store to call for the music be allowed and thousands more took to the streets at the intersection of 14th and U NW in a series of live performances to support the District’s homegrown genre of funk.

According to Natalie Hopkinson, an assistant professor for the Department of Communications, Culture and Media Studies at Howard University, the movement has since grown into a voice for a much larger problem.

Although it remains an integral part of the discussion, it’s not just about the music.

“The big battle over the street corner has since morphed into a conversation about how gentrification has displaced more than 20,000 African-Americans in just over a decade.” Hopkinson said while speaking on a panel last month at the Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Northeast.

Hopkinson was one of four panelists organized by the nonprofit Empower D.C. to discuss gentrification in the District. According to the organization, the effects have led not only to the situation with the MetroPCS store but to the erasure of significant cultural traditions and legacies of Black Americans who have lived in and been increasingly pushed out of the city. A 2017 report

by Maurice Jackson, a Georgetown University professor and chair of D.C. African American Affairs Commission, showed that ongoing economic growth and gentrification trends have been disproportionately inhibiting AfricanAmerican residents since the 1980s.

Much of the panel discussion centered around solutions and the importance of general discourse and community resistance against gentrification. Hopkinson presented a slideshow detailing the origins and progression of the #DontMuteDC movement, including insight on the recent Howard University graduate, Julien Broomfield, who penned the hashtag and the recent tribute led by Regina Hall during the 2019 BET Awards.

“Gentrification can be very depressing to talk about, but it makes me very happy to talk about resistance,” Hopkinson said. “Particularly cultural resistance — and this is what we’re seeing.”

This sentiment was shared by the other panelists, including Shelle Haynesworth, lead creative and owner of the multimedia firm Indigo Creative Works. “I am a storyteller,” Haynesworth said. “And I feel that telling stories can have a very transformative effect on preserving our cultural, historical experience in Washington, D.C.” Haynesworth’s latest project, “Black Broadway on U,” blends various mediums and cultural storytelling techniques to maintain the history of U-Street, which was once a financially and culturally affluent neighborhood. It

Rev. Graylan Hagler of Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ in Northeast shared remarks before handing the floor over to the panelists (left to right), Michelle Coghill Chatman, Shelle Haynesworth, and Natalie Hopkinson. Photo by Reginald Black.

was established and predominantly maintained by Black Americans throughout the Jim Crow era.

The main inspiration for the project came from Haynesworth’s grandmother, Lucille Dawson, who felt compelled to open up about her life and the history of U Street after hardly recognizing it when driving down the street with Haynesworth in 2013. Dawson had migrated to the city from Louisiana in 1932 when she was 12.

Several of the places she had danced in and worked at while growing up had vanished.

Haynesworth said the shock her grandmother felt by seeing cultural landmarks and history literally erased allowed her to also see the need to share her story.

“It struck me in that moment, the need to capture the stories of our elders,” Haynesworth said, adding that she wasn’t taught any of this history as a young student in D.C. public schools.

In recent years, there have been resources such as the Howard University library and the Washingtoniana collection at the D.C. Public Library that provide books, articles, and more about local D.C. history. But for Haynesworth, it was mostly through family and friends’ stories growing up that she was able to learn about the “breadth and depth” of the neighborhood’s significance during that time.

Michelle Coghill Chatman, an assistant professor for the Crime, Justice, and Security Studies program at the University of the District of Columbia, said being a part of pan-African and Black communities throughout college is how she learned about the Black history of U Street and other areas. She also did her own research.

“For some cultural groups, the passing on of history is a very oral and in-your-face endeavor and it’s not so easy to replicate that online.” Chatman said. “It’s really about lived experience and being in the space with people.”

Chatman has studied the influence of pan-Africanism on several District institutions and businesses, and said gentrification frequently challenges or threatens the cultural identity and history of those spaces.

At the panel, she shared examples from her 20112013 dissertation research on how gentrification and demographic shifts in D.C. have affected the ability of Black-owned independent schools and businesses to practice their identity, many of which are gone now.

Blue Nile Botanicals and Ujamaa Shule (School), both of which are in Northwest, participated in Chatman’s research and shared their experiences dealing with new residents and their reactions to the Black-owned establishments.

The owners of Blue Nile, in the Pleasant Plains neighborhood near Howard University, told Chatman that new residents would come in and question their products and practices, despite the store being open for over 30 years. At Ujamaa, located in the area now known as NoMa, the instructors had experienced complaints from new neighbors who were not used to the drumming practices. Afrikan drumming has been a part of the school’s educational system throughout the duration of its operation, alongside instruction in areas such as science, mathematics, health and nutrition, martial arts, and dance.

“People just don’t understand that these are not just buildings and spaces,” Chatman said. “There are relationships and ideas and ideals that are attached to these spaces and it really feels assaulting when people feel that they have to protect their spaces again and again.”

Chatman released a study in 2017 on the impact gentrification has had on the city’s Black churches.

She began her reasearch around the 45th anniversary of Elliot Liebow’s “Tally’s Corner: A Study on Negro Streetcorner Men” from 1967. Chatman said the purpose of her study was not to replicate Liebow’s research, which primarily observed the livelihoods of Black men in a then-segregated neighborhood. Instead, she wanted to focus on how that same neighborhood had changed over time, specifically, on the “subtle ways in which Black churches are being pushed out of their communities as a result of political and cultural displacement.”

Chatman interviewed several churchgoers at Mt. Zion Pentacostal Church, which has been in the Logan Circle neighborhood for more than 80 years. Many expressed feeling a sense of aggression and entitlement from new neighbors who seemed “uninterested” in engaging with the cultural or religious institutions of the neighborhood.

“They’re a young population, they’re EuropeanAmerican. And I think along with that sense of entitlement [there is this notion that] ‘what I bring is more important than what you bring,’” said a young woman quoted in Chatman’s research. The woman, Monica Wilkins, had worried over the effects this new attitude would have on people who have lived and worshiped in her community for many years.

“As Black businesses and Black institutions are unable to survive or be supported in D.C., some of that history just disappears along with them, unfortunately.” Chatman said.

Sankofa Video, Books, and Cafe — a Black-owned bookstore in Shaw — has been fighting against similar

streetsensemedia.org

issues this year, according to Co-owner Shirikiana Gerima. The owners of the 21-year-old establishment recently won a 10-year tax abatement from D.C. Council last month, relieving the business from the area’s rising property taxes for the next decade.

“Why are we being asked to pay $30,000 a year to a city government that’s really doing well at offering abatements to larger corporations?” Gerima said. “Why am I working so hard to put this kind of money aside so that can happen?”

Located near Howard University, Sankofa has been a space for the community to engage in African-centered literature and media. Gerima said that they have “created something we can be proud of” through the store and hopes it will continue to teach and inspire people for as long as possible.

Sabiyha Prince, the membership and political education coordinator “Gentrification can be for Empower D.C., said the June 24 very depressing to talk panel was not meant to be a discussion on about, but it makes whether gentrification is good or bad. Rather, me very happy to talk it was meant to call about resistance.” out the damaging effects on the roots of communities and what can or should be done Natalie Hopkinson in order to resist them.

Earlier this year, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition released a report that found the District suffered the most widespread low-income displacement of any major central city since 2000.

In an essay Prince wrote in conjunction with that research, she said the issue “begins with targeting lowincome, urban communities for discrimination and neglect and ends with ‘improvements’ that exacerbate vulnerabilities that culminate in displacement.”

A recent survey conducted by the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development seems to support her theory. The data shows approximately one fifth of the residents in wards 7 and 8 are anticipating the need to move within three years due to an inability to pay their landlord or bank. The survey also found that Black residents across the city were just over three times as likely to have previously moved on account of “residential instability” than white residents.

Statistics like these are what most of the attendees at the event want to see changed.

“The way that Empower D.C. contributes to that work of preserving Black culture is by fighting to keep the people present,” Prince said. “If the people are here and they represent and engage with the culture, then it’s here.

It’s present, it’s natural, it’s organic.”

She said the one good thing gentrification has done is it has encouraged awareness and resistance among the community. Her hope is to ensure that the past, present, and future of Black communities in the District don’t falter under gentrification. Instead, she would like to see them preserved alongside the city’s growth, through new movements, research, community gatherings — whatever it takes.

“The future looks like a city that’s growing with time, but is also inclusive of everyone,“ Prince said.

What does affordable housing have to do with climate change?

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David Epley, who manages the Green Building Division at D.C.’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, confirmed in an interview. But there are other factors at play.

Even if the energy a finished building uses is carbon free or carbon-neutral, the energy and waste involved in producing construction materials such as cement and steel — called the embodied energy content — still leaves a substantial carbon footprint. Financing and workforce training are also still significant barriers to large green building projects, according to Epley.

Net-zero energy and net-zero carbon design and construction are “emerging work,” Epley said. “To be

By Brianna Bilter // Editorial Intern successful, it requires a paradigm shift in the way we finance, build, and operate our buildings.”

There is broad consensus among the international scientific Then, there is the issue of political will. community that the need to address climate change is dire.

According to Baca, the Greater Greater Washington The United Nations has set an urgent deadline of 2030 to organizer, the nexus of housing and climate change has implement global emission policies, warning that a perilous reached the public consciousness because it is finally starting rise in global temperature will occur if they are not met. to affect the middle class. Yet the battle has to be fought in The advocacy group Greater Greater Washington and the low-income neighborhoods, too.

D.C. Democratic Socialists of America organized a panel Cohen agreed, but said low-income neighborhoods face of academic and policy experts to identify how the District a dilemma: investment in transportation and greenery could meet these goals while also addressing its struggles accelerates gentrification, and these investments are with an affordable housing crisis and increasing inequality. paramount for de-carbonization.

“Environmentalists know transportation is the elephant in the “Everything you do to make a place better causes social room,” Alex Baca, the housing program organizer for Greater displacement,” Cohen said.

Greater Washington, wrote in an article for Slate. “At first blush, The District’s current inclusionary zoning policies the easiest way to attack that problem is to electrify everything, cannot deliver even close to the housing stock its residents and that’s largely what the Green New Deal calls for.” need, according to Patty Rose, the executive director of the Baca, a panelist, doesn’t think technology can remedy the sustainable development nonprofit Greenspace, NCR, Inc. consequences of urban sprawl. The missing piece to the story, However, she disagreed with the idea that green investment she argued, is housing policy. accelerates gentrification.

Other concerns — like food and job security — are “It’s not a matter of the sustainability,” Rose said in an generally prioritized over the serious environmental impact interview. “It’s a matter of the intentions of the community of a long drive to work that might otherwise be viewed as and the developers and the government.” only an inconvenience, according to Baca. But D.C., with the The primary goals of integrating green building practices second-longest average commute in the U.S., is chock-full into affordable housing are to increase of carbon-emitting motorists.

“Land use is really hard to talk about, right?”

“Land use is really efficiency, thus reducing high utility bills, and to shield vulnerable, low-income residents Baca said. “Who is really talking about why hard to talk about, from the negative impacts of poor indoor air the house they grew up in is where it is?” quality and a lack of access to transportation The “smart-growth” perspective Baca endorses right? Who is really options, according to Epley, the Green is founded on the premise that increasing density in urban areas will reduce transportation costs talking about why Building Division manager.

Rose pointed to Wheeler Terrace as a and create jobs close to where people live, thus the house they grew model example. The 116-unit affordable reducing their carbon footprint. housing community in the Washington But “densification” alone may not be enough.

According to panelist and University of up in is where it is?” Highlands neighborhood achieved LEED Gold certification through energy-reducing Pennsylvania sociology professor Daniel Aldana upgrades and has won community awards for Cohen, what the country needs is 10 million affordability and environmental excellence. new, public, no-carbon homes in 10 years.

Alex Baca D.C. has broken ground with the Clean “Densification without aggressive Energy D.C. Omnibus Amendment Act of 2018, pledging interventions to ensure affordability simply isn’t going to to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2032. work,” he said.

While an estimated 50 percent of buildings will be affected, Instead, Cohen posited that the time and resources saved by public housing in D.C. has taken a backseat, as conflict reduced commutes will just go toward luxury plane flights, over funding for repairs has faced what Baca referred to iPads, and other carbon-intensive goods and services. He as “budget chicken.” argued that rather than solving the climate crisis or the Buildings and construction contribute 39 percent of the affordable housing crisis, dense, wealthy, urban cores will world’s energy-related carbon dioxide emissions, according further economic segregation, resulting in an “economic to a 2017 report by the United Nations Environment Program. apartheid world.”

In D.C., buildings account for an even larger proportion of And this model won’t lower carbon emissions, he greenhouse gas emissions. added. Where economic segregation exists, jobs have to be Though technology has its role to play in combating outsourced, and people will have to commute. climate change, Rose said a “marriage of both” technological In reality, low-carbon neighborhoods “tend to be and political change is needed. And investing power is limited neighborhoods anchored by affordable housing,” Cohen said, at the state level, according to Cohen, who said sustainable “and, in this country, often with large populations of workingand affordable housing developments need to be driven by class people, multiracial neighborhoods, with high quality federal investment. public services that have been built up over decades.”

“That doesn’t mean you give up on the local stuff,” Cohen The prospect of building 10 million homes that operate at said. “But eyes on the prize.” net-zero carbon is technically feasible with current technology,

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NEWs

Downtown Displaced:

Gentrifying Mount Vernon Square, 1840 - Present

By Dan Kerr Volunteer

A built landscape that includes residential homes, apartment buildings and small businesses in all directions surrounding Mount Vernon Square.

Aerial Photography archive images Courtesy of American University Library

O

The image is of the shopping district along 7th Street between Mount Vernon Place and L St NW. In the 1970s, renewal efforts led to the demolition of these buildings.

The area became a parking lot for a quarter of a century before the current Convention Center was built on this land. Courtesy of Historical Society of Washington.

n May 11, Apple Inc. completed its most extensive historic renovation to date and opened its new Carnegie Library location to the public. Overall, the public and local press greeted the grand opening with enthusiastic reviews. People raved about the care put into the restoration and praised efforts that went into revitalizing Mount Vernon Square. A few naysayers critiqued the privatization of the building that formerly housed the central branch of the D.C. Public Library. But few acknowledged the role the library’s revitalization played in the long process of gentrification that displaced the once vibrant, predominantly African-American neighborhoods surrounding the square.

And this was not the first community the Carnegie Library has played a role in destroying. The library, in its 113-year history, has twice marked the culminating moment in the destruction of a neighborhood – first with its initial construction and now with its most recent restoration.

The Mount Vernon Square neighborhood first began to take shape in the 1840s with the construction of the Northern Liberty Market.

By the mid-19th century, the area had become a predominantly immigrant and AfricanAmerican, working-class neighborhood centered on the market. In 1857, the KnowNothing-Party or American Party, which was staunchly anti-immigrant, targeted the bustling Mount Vernon neighborhood by sending street gangs to the area to intimidate voters. This provocation led to the outbreak of the KnowNothing Riots, which left six people killed and twenty-one injured. The Know Nothings unsuccessfully hoped to undercut the political strength of this community.

Where the Know Nothings failed, city officials and developers would succeed.

Fifteen years later, in 1872 the city government passed a bill authorizing the destruction of Northern Liberty Market. While many of the adjacent landowners petitioned for the closure, citing poor sanitation and “a most disagreeable stench,” vendors and patrons of

the market vehemently protested the decision.

In an effort to suppress further protest, Board of Public Works Commissioner Alexander R. Shepard ordered a crew to raze the market in the dead of night on September 4, 1872. Two residents were accidentally killed during the demolition when a wall unexpectedly buckled.

Upon the destruction of Liberty Market, the city transformed Mount Vernon Square into a park for the community, which raised the adjacent land values. Developers soon lined the square with new homes and wealthy, white Washingtonians moved into them, transforming the neighborhood.

As the area became an upscale neighborhood, Andrew Carnegie provided funding to build a library in Mount Vernon Square. Some citizens opposed the library’s construction and wanted to keep their community park. However, city officials believed the new library would solidify the transformation of the neighborhood and further enhance surrounding property values.

Carnegie’s new library opened in 1903, nearly thirty years after Liberty Market was destroyed. It marked a culminating point of sorts in the lengthy process of neighborhood dispossession and change. Neighborhoods, however, are never complete and real estate developers in the city moved on to focus on new areas. The construction of the library served as a model for subsequent projects in the city. The District’s city planners embraced large-scale visual improvements to public spaces that they

Between 1964 and 1988, nearly every building south of Massachusetts Ave. and New York Avenue, east of the Union Station railroad tracks, north of F Street, and west of 14th Street has been demolished. These changes did not just occur as result of abstract market forces. A tremendous amount of planning, beginning as early as 1961, steered this transformation.

believed would increase the value of property.

To make way for the construction of Union Station in 1907, the builders first destroyed hundreds of homes in Swampoodle Alley, displacing alley residents, most of them immigrants of Irish descent. In the 1920s, the federal government would begin demolition work in another working-class neighborhood in the vicinity of Center Market in order to make way for the Federal Triangle.

Even with these dramatic changes, both Black and white Washingtonians remained in the neighborhoods bordering Mount Vernon Square and across downtown in the early twentieth century. Typically, the houses facing the streets were inhabited by white residents, while the hidden alleyways in the interior of the blocks were inhabited by African Americans.

It would be D.C. developers, private citizens, and the courts that would help lay the groundwork for the rise in racially segregated neighborhoods across the city.

The first evidence of these new practices can be found in the 1910s when homeowners and developers in Washington, D.C. began adding racially restrictive covenants to the titles of properties. These covenants, enforced by the courts, prohibited future property sales to African Americans.

This private sector discrimination became institutionalized by the federal government when Congress and President Roosevelt created the Federal Housing Administration in 1934. Prior to the New Deal, homeownership

Marines fire into crowd on June 1, 1857 killing 6 and wounding 21. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper Know Nothing Riot. Courtesy of the Historical Society of Washington, DC

was prohibitively expensive for middle-class families. Bank mortgages typically required 50 percent down, interest-only payments, and repayment in full after five to seven years. The FHA-insured bank mortgages that covered 80 percent of the purchase prices had terms of 20 years and allowed borrowers to build equity in their homes while they paid off their loans. However, the FHA’s appraisal standards included a whites-only requirement; racial segregation became an official requirement of the federal mortgage insurance program. The agency judged racially mixed neighborhoods and all-white neighborhoods that were at risk of future integration as too risky for insurance.

Those areas were highlighted with red ink on the neighborhood maps created by the federal government, thus locking Black Americans out of the new FHA-backed affordable housing opportunities.

As new streetcar lines extended into the Upper Northwest of the city, white homeowners moved into newly constructed, all-white communities, and benefited from federally subsidized mortgages. Because Mt. Vernon’s homes were older and African Americans lived in the area, those homes did not have access to favorable home loans. African Americans bought the once prestigious homes lining the streets of Mount Vernon Square. Without the FHA’s help, those purchases were made with the contract system, which resulted in them paying the previous owners directly for the homes with high interest rates and short-term contracts.

As the Mount Vernon Square neighborhood became increasingly Black in the 1940s and 1950s, urban planners became worried about “blight” in the area and turned to the Urban Renewal Program for assistance. Harry Truman established the federally funded “urban renewal” program when he signed the Housing Act of 1949. The act dictated that federal funds would be utilized to “redevelop” urban areas deemed as “slums” suffering from blight. Washington, D.C., had one of the country’s earliest urban renewal projects in Southwest D.C. The project displaced 23,000 residents from a predominantly African

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celebrating success

This Architectural Survey for Mount Vernon Square, done in 1961, envisions mass displacement of African American and Asian American neighborhoods as part of a longterm “beautification” plan. The rendering remarkably forecasts the future transformation of these areas. Courtesy of the DC Public Library Washingtoniana Collection.

American neighborhood. Critics, including famed writer James Baldwin, referred to the project as the “Negro Removal Program.”

With the Southwest DC project nearing completion, public officials lauded its successes and called for a “decisive acceleration of the renewal program” focused on downtown.

Well before the 1968 uprisings, in 1961 officials published “A Policies Plan for the Year 2000” that called for “the renewal of most of the original City of Washington.” The plan identified areas around Mount Vernon Square as experiencing “residential deterioration” in need of “renewal.”

The plan included drawings depicting the area completely transformed— with current homes and communities erased and replaced with multi-story apartment buildings and offices — eerily reminiscent of what exists today.

The plans targeted existing Black neighborhoods for removal.

Demolition in the designated zone began prior to the 1968 uprising and continued over the next several decades.

Business leaders pressed to have a new publicly funded convention center serve as a catalyst for future private development.

And in the early 1970s, the Washington Board of Trade pressed for the construction of a convention center in the Mount Vernon Square area. The proposal argued, “the fringe of the Central Business Area is one of the most rapidly deteriorating residential areas in Washington. Heavy traffic, noise, smells, and other effects of non-residential uses are only some of the conditions which have made this type of area undesirable as a living-place.” While authors of the report concluded the area to be uninhabitable, the planners were well aware that there were a large number of people of color that lived in the area.

Initially, the D.C. government proposed building the Washington Convention Center in Chinatown. However, residents

of Chinatown presented fierce resistance and managed to alter city plans. The Convention Center was ultimately built west of 9th Street, but the large-scale demolitions of the Downtown Urban Renewal project would later pave the way for the construction of the MCI Center — now the Capital One Arena — that opened in 1997.

In the early 1980s, the city’s first convention center opened southwest of the square, having displaced and destroyed a significant amount of affordable housing in the process.

However, in a few short years the Washington Board of Trade complained that the new convention center was too small to accommodate the conventions they hoped to attract. In 2002, D.C. officials approved the construction of a second convention center just north of Mount Vernon Square. Economists associated with the project publicized its alleged potential to bring more jobs and money to the area. Independent economists, however, determined that these were empty promises.

Developers made these false promises with the construction of what is now Capital One Arena, too. They assured the residents in the neighborhood that the arena would bring them jobs and better business opportunities. The benefits of development, however, did not go to the people who had lived in or operated businesses the neighborhood.

The dislocation caused by rising rent prices was disastrous. Barely 10 percent of the organizations and businesses that had been in the area before the stadium survived it’s construction. Many of the remaining residents are elderly and live in the Wah Luck House, which was constructed in the 1970s during the District’s attempt to place the old Convention Center in Chinatown.

At a cost of $16 million dollars, the city demolished the old convention center in 2004 and 2005 and built a parking lot. The

Robert Reed the day he wrote this.

Photo by angie Whitehurst, Artist/Vendor

land was turned over to private developers who began building CityCenterDC in 2011. When the first phase opened in 2015, it included luxury apartments, offices, and high-end retail establishments.

T h e M o u n t Ve r n o n S q u a r e neighborhood has endured waves of urban renewal efforts and subsequent displacement. Rapid transformations continued into the twenty-first century.

Property values continue to skyrocket as local government incentives attract large companies to develop D.C. A recent study by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition found that D.C. has had a greater intensity of gentrification and more displacement of African Americans than any other city in the country. These changes have been traumatic for many long-time residents, who continue to feel the emotional consequences of this physical disruption.

In 2018, Apple Inc. announced the renovation of the Carnegie Library, turning its first floor into their east coast flagship. With its grand opening in May, the library once again marked a culminating point in a half century effort to transform the neighborhood, dispossessing a once thriving community in the process. Neighborhoods are not static and developers will be restless as they move into new neighborhoods as they continue to refine their techniques at making profits in the urban real estate market. These patterns of gentrification and dispossession are likely to persist and evolve without major political or social interventions.

Dan Kerr is an associate professor of history at American University with expertise in urban inequality, boosterism, development, gentrification, low wage labor, and homelessness.

Hannah Byrne, Curtis Harris, Lina Mann, Kai Walther, and Meaghan Snow have contributed to the research in this article.

This 55-year old gentleman needs an apartment. He’s neat, he’s clean, and he doesn’t have a pet. He likes to play football, go jogging, and take long walks.

Sometimes he even reads books! He also needs a job. He’s strong, has excellent work ethics, and will perform an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Can you or anyone you know help, please?

By Robert Reed, Artist/Vendor

Birthdays Chad Jackson Sept. 26 Artist/Vendor

Anthony Carney Oct. 6 Artist/Vendor

Vincent Watts Oct. 19 Artist/Vendor

Our stories, straight to your inbox Street Sense Media provides a vehicle through which all of us can learn about homelessness from those who have experienced it. Sign up for our newsletter to get our vendors' stories in your inbox.

www.StreetSenseMedia.org/newsletter

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Opinion

Residents, shopkeepers, and cultural institutions displaced from H Street Words and Photos by Joseph Young Artist-in-Residence

T

hese photographs are part of a longer essay that can be seen as a meditation on the H Street NE Corridor, where I have lived for the past 25 years. I’ve spent more than a decade documenting the gentrification of my working-class neighborhood, which is vanishing fast.

The gentrification has forced out longtime neighbors in droves because the rents have skyrocketed too d*** high. My neighbor and friend Tony Williams experienced displacement twice in his lifetime: first from Southwest and now from the H Street NE Corridor. He called urban renewal “Negro removal,” a statement made famous by the novelist James Baldwin in the 1960s.

Anthony W. Williams of Washington, D.C., died suddenly of an aneurysm in 2014.

As the gentrification takes hold all around me, my sense of belonging has been shattered in ways that I have never felt before. Realtors have rebranded a portion of the corridor — bounded by North Capitol Street to the west, Florida Avenue to the north, F Street to the south and 15th Street to the east — as the Atlas District. The name comes from the Atlas Theater at 13th and H, which opened to an all-white audience as the Atlas Movie Theater in 1938.

The commercial area around the theater is not the only section of the corridor that has been rebranded.

Further west, the gentrifiers have christened it NoMa, which is developing to look like a business park.

This is an affront to my pride and human dignity. I, for one, refuse to call my neighborhood by any other name. To do so would be tantamount to objectifying my own Black body. What an incredible insult to this community of longtime residents who held it together on a shoestring during the tough times. It may have been seen as a ghetto to the new arrivals but as for me and mine, we call it home.

The commercial area around the Atlas Theater is not the only section of the H Street NE corridor that has been renamed. Further west, the gentrifiers have christened it NoMa which is developing to look like a business park. Pic taken at 1st and M streets NE, Washington, D.C. 2018.

Photo by Joseph Young

There are very few Blacks who are hired to work on construction sites in Washington, D.C. This site was formerly an Amaco gas station. It has been replaced by the 360 H Street luxury apartments and Giant food. Pic taken at the 300 block of H Street NE, Washington, D.C. Photo by Joseph Young

There are similar efforts going on in other parts of the city. Ward 7 Councilmember and former mayor Vincent Gray has been working tirelessly for nearly a decade to rename Southeast Washington, a working-class community of mostly African Americans. He refers to the area as “the East End,” though his efforts have gone mostly unnoticed.

Rebranding, as it is referred to, is merely a scheme used by the real estate industry to lure white home buyers to Black working-class communities. It scrubs the Black past of the hood, so white buyers will be able to stomach it until the gentrification is complete.

And, of course, it’s an assertion of the gentrifiers’

newfound aspirations: ridding blight from working class neighborhoods as well as the poor people who had afforded to live in them.

Since 2003, when former mayor Anthony Williams announced his intentions to spur population growth in the city, more than 100,000 gentrifiers have migrated to the District. The consequences have been devastating, such as rising rents and the forced relocation of lowincome Black families and small Black businesses now facing bleak economic futures. In a 13-year period, more than 20,000 Black Washingtonians were displaced to areas outside of Washington, D.C.

Disinvestment II. Replaced by Redrock restaurant. Pic taken at the 1300 block of H Street NE, Washington, D.C.

Adonai and Holyway Baptist Church, couple of the many churches to close on the H Street NE corridor, including the Faith Bible Church which was replaced by the Maryland luxury apartments. Holyway was replaced by Fatty’s Tattoos.

Pic taken at the 500 block of H Street NE, Washington, D.C.

Photo by Joseph Young

Photo by Joseph Young

streetsensemedia.org

Swampoodle Park, a dog park and children’s playground, named for an Irish neighborhood in Washington, D.C., on the border of Northwest and Northeast in the second half of 19th and early 20th century. This neighborhood is no longer known as Swampoodle and has been replaced by NoMa. Pic taken at 3rd and L streets Northeast Washington, D.C. 2018.

LEFT: Murry’s Food Store was replaced by Whole Food. Pic taken at 6th and H streets, Northeast Washington, D.C. RIGHT: A Gentrified H Street Festival and Whole Foods Market, formerly Murry’s Food Store. Pic taken at the 600 block of H Street NE, Washington, D.C. 2017.

Local and federal government officials are complicit in this because their housing policies support the gentrification pioneers. Take the luxury apartment development The Avalon in “NoMa” as an example: the project received financial backing from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Working-class African Americans know they will be unable to afford the rents.

Gentrification pushes out not only the working poor, but their cultural institutions. For example, Black churches are seeing their congregation numbers dwindle. I’ve witnessed one church after another close its doors, such as the 128 year-old historic St. Phillips Baptist Church in Northwest or Faith Bible Church and St. John’s Church of God, both in Northeast.

Black barbershops and salons are also being forced to close their doors or move to keep their business afloat. The barbershop is more than a place to go and get my hair cut.

It is a safe place where I can freely express myself about a variety of social issues, including politics and sports.

The back and forth dialogue between Black men helps sharpen my intellect and build comradeship. This is important to me as a Black man who lives in a society where my human worth is challenged in every conceivable way imagined. These places make me feel protected from the outside white world.

Without these safe places my Black body is like a ship without a compass, going around and around but getting nowhere.

There are only a few Black shopkeepers left on H. Soon there will be even fewer. The cost of doing business there is too high. To be successful in business, or life, for that matter, you need access to capital. In other words, you need a lender. Without a lender in business, it is almost impossible to build a thriving enterprise. Banks are reluctant to extend loans to Black folk. That’s the number one problem. My top destinations were the thrift shops. The Salvation Army at the 1400 block of H Street NE had been there since the 1950s.

It has closed now, they all have. I felt sorry to see them go.

Those shops were a vital part of the neighborhood.

Now, my absolute favorite finds were the vintage clothing.

My entire closet is filled with menswear I bought at those thrifts. I love my vintage hats and overcoats. The changes that have taken place on H make me feel like I’m a long way from home.

The Salvation Army is where I discovered new music and built my vinyl record collection of rhythm and blues. That’s where I found Carole King’s “Tapestry.” As a teen, I’d heard Aretha Franklin perform “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman,” but I didn’t know the lyrics were written by King.

“Tapestry” is one of the greatest albums of all time.

Photo by Joseph Young

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Photos by Joseph Young

Running Out of Time. Studio 1307 is closing after cutting hair on the H Street NE corridor for the past 25 years. It will be replaced by a restaurant. Pic taken at the 1300 block of H Street NE, Washington, D.C. 2018. Photo by Joseph Young

They also carried an unbelievable book selection. I found a first edition of President Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream,” which the President later autographed.

The self storage facility, which also doubled as a homeless shelter, is being razed. Pic was taken at the 1200 block of 3rd Street NE, Washington, D.C. 2018. Photo byJoseph Young

The new shops, many of which are restaurants, cater mostly to affluent white millennials. This is additional proof that Black culture will not survive on the H Street NE corridor. Ironically, many gentrifiers have a taste for foreign foods, such as Mexican and Indian cuisine and a variety of Asian dishes. Where there used to be a food desert, with only carry-outs and liquor stores, now multiple grocery chains also sell beer and wine. More wine is consumed in Washington, D.C. per person than any place else in the country.

God knows that Black Americans have had their endurance tested by redlining, restrictive covenants, disinvestment, low wages, costly rents, segregation, predatory lending, police brutality, crime, violence, and now gentrification displacement and pressure. This photo essay explores the themes of home, away from home, space, belonging, community, identity, segregation, escapism, (discarded) memory, change, loss, absence, and endurance.

I didn’t have a plan of execution for this project. I let the project speak to me. I’m also guided by a need to try and say something about the world, as the photographer Paul Strand would have put it.

As for my influences, well, of course, Paul Strand, Lewis Hine, W. Eugene Smith, Robert Frank, Gordon Parks, Roy Decarava, Ernest C. Withers, Edward Hopper, Latoya Ruby Frazier, John Szarkowski, who said photography was born perfect and the Emmett Till open casket photo.

“Make me wanna holla what they do with my life” — Marvin Gaye, in his song “Inner City Blues.” Gaye was born and raised in D.C., where his family lived in public housing.

Joseph Young is a photographer living in Washington, D.C. His work has appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, Washington Times, Washington Afro Newspaper and the Washington Informer.

He is also a grant recipient from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for his photography series on people who are homeless in the nation’s capital.

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Opinion Letter to the Editor:

Tent to a Mansion: A lasting tribute to Brother Michael Irby

By Darryl Hines

I would like to personally thank Street Sense Media and Will Schick for the very professional handling and reporting on the untimely death of Brother Michael Irby.

Brother Irby departed this life on the morning of July 26 while asleep in his tent. Street Sense’s sensitivity and compassion in this matter did not go unnoticed or unappreciated.

In doing so, you contributed to an outpouring of love and support from various segments of the D.C. community rarely seen, though on full display at his memorial services. The Rev. Dr. James Coleman officiated.

Michael’s extended family included church and choir members, musicians, those living in various shelters, the homeless/tent community, social services personnel, professional workers, Union Station employees, friends, Metro police, and many more. The cross section of those present at one point prompted Pastor Coleman to state, “This is what a church should look like.” It was clear to see that Brother Irby had touched and influenced many lives.

Those in attendance were able to witness the fact that Mike never let the fact that he lived in a tent dictate his circumstances, zeal for life, nor curtail his caring, helping attitude. As the service unfolded, it was obvious that his infectious spirit was present.

If you needed a tent erected or one repaired, Mike was there. A warm blanket? No problem. He would go out of his way to retrieve one for you.

A kind word of advice or encouragement and a needed smile, always laced with a sense of humor, were all parts of his repertoire.

His wit served him well, coupled with his personality and charm. He could readily defuse potential volatile situations when confronted. He had “street sense.”

As a street musician, when I travel throughout the DMV, I am still constantly reminded that he is missed, as he always travelled with me. I am showered with encouragement, condolences, concern, prayer, and support of all kinds.

Needless to say, you were my brother and best friend, a true “soldier” and a genuine “good” dude – you always had my back. You had a special “swag.”

You also had class and compassion, but most of all, you had Christ in your soul.

Brother Irby may have temporarily resided in a small tent in this life but know that he has moved onto to that deluxe apartment in the sky. It’s called a “mansion.” It comes with all the amenities one's heart could ever desire, and it will be your permanent residence from now on.

As for me, I’ll carry on. I thank the Lord daily for the time we were able to spend together, my Brother.

I’ll see you when I got there. Peace and love.

Darryl Hines was a close friend of Mr. Irby and a District resident experiencing homelessness.

Keep the Circulator bus free!

By Colly Dennis

It’s very unfortunate that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has not fought tooth and nail with the city council to keep the circulator bus running for free. For anyone wondering who the council member that fought viciously against the mayor’s proposal, look no further than Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh.

This is the same person that chairs the D.C. Council Committee on Transportation and the Environment. Her primary job is to oversee all the transportation in D.C.; work towards its improvement, reliability, and accessibility; and most importantly, make it more efficient, accessible and affordable for her constituents.

Instead, she is waging war against people who are utilizing a very essential and much-needed service in the District. This is a service that saves so many people money; not everyone in the District can afford to take the Metro back and forth seven days a week. People need the Circulator to go to work, get to school and appointments, and deal with medical emergencies.

Cheh doesn't seem to have any empathy for those that depend on this service. She recently openly bragged about how the budget for 2020 has already been passed and there was noting the mayor could do to change it. “She can keep tweeting,” she

said of Bowser, “but she knows what the story is. The budget is done. It’s not going to happen,” With all the money being spent on non-essential events in D.C.—like some beautiful fireworks at the Lincoln Memorial for some guy to stroke his ego—the District would do better to spend all those resources towards having the circulator run through every ward. The DC council should focus on running with a service that has been working perfectly fine, and is accessible, convenient, and, best of all, free.

Shutting down this service will have a heavy impact on many workers that rely on public transportation to get to work. It’s also a service that takes away all of the headaches and worries of waiting for someone to find the right change to pay for a regular bus fare. It also cuts down on the wait time in traffic since all passengers can board without waiting to pay.

Message to the mayor: Don't let the D.C. Council stop you on doing this. People are in full support of it. Keep the Circulator bus running for free by any means necessary.

Colly Dennis is an artist and vendor with Street Sense Media.

Democrats are Donald Trump's greatest campaign ad

By Jeffery McNeil

It will be much easier for President Donald Trump to win in 2020 than it was in 2016.

The president doesn’t really have to spend money on campaign ads because there is no greater motivation to vote for Donald Trump then showing radical Democrats such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar or Rashida Tlaib who have become the face of today's Democratic Party. They're the ones now leading the charge to impeach Trump and remove him from office.

Nancy Pelosi is no longer the leader of the House of Representatives. She is not in charge. The party has been taken over by people who believe America is a terrible place that must be fundamentally transformed.

Tuesday, September 24th, 2019 may have been one of the lowest points for a House speaker in American history.

The president was before the United Nation representing our country and the speaker couldn’t show courage and for once do what's best for the country -- instead, she announced "an official impeachment inquiry."

Tell Ocasio-Cortez and her radical base that removing Trump is pure fantasy since the Constitution requires a two-thirds supermajority in the Senate to convict a person who's been impeached. You need twenty Senate Republicans to fall on their sword and vote with Democrats.

What do these Democrats think would happen if they impeached the president? Do

they think the 60 million people who voted for Trump are going to just sit back and allow you to remove him from office? Are they okay with Mike Pence being president?

Their hate has clouded their judgment.

The one way to remove Trump from office is through the ballot box.

Unfortunately for Democrats, they won’t win because voters don't want transgender men to have abortion rights, nor do I believe giving illegal immigrants healthcare or requiring universal background checks are popular ideas.

I don’t believe farmers in Iowa want a small elite from Washington or New York restricting them from farming in the name of climate change. However, Democrats pander to this narrow group of Ivy League professors and Hollywood actors while alienating working-class people. In 2020 as in 2016 Democrats don’t know who the Silent Majority is or who supports Trump but we will rise like the Phoenix and vote out everyone with a "D" next to their name.

Donald Trump will highlight every statement by Omar, Tlaib and OcasioCortez to paint them as the face of the Democratic Party.

Trump doesn’t want Joe Biden. He’s praying the radicals get their wish and nominate Elizabeth Warren, who is the female version of Micheal Dukakis.

Warren is a one-trick pony whose core issue is railing against the One Percent

when she’s a one-percenter herself. The media hasn’t asked her anything about foreign policy or the military. We don’t know how she’ll handle such hot spots as North Korea, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Saudi Arabia or Yemen.

The Ukraine scandal is doing more harm to Biden than Trump. While the two stories may be seperate,there are similarities, namely elites using their influence to get special privileges. Could an average person who was kicked out of the Naval Reserve for drug use sit on the board of a foreign company and receive as much as $50,000 per month?

Both Biden and Warren have spent their political lives claiming they are champions of the little guy while neither has created jobs or produced anything.

They made their fortunes off of taxpayer money. Trump has built skyscrapers and signed paychecks. When you show that contrast Trump will win easily in 2020.

Although I voted Trump in 2016 I still considered myself a Democrat. I have now finally registered as Republican. I never donated to a campaign and I just gave $45.

Maybe the best thing that can happen to the Democrats is they get beat resoundingly. Maybe a Bill Clinton or a Donald Trump will emerge in the Democratic Party, someone who will stand up to the radicals and force them back to the Communist Party. Then the Democrats can get back to once again standing up for the working people, not these Anti-American subversives who today pose as Democrats.

Jeffery McNeil is an artist and vendor with Street Sense Media. He also regularly contributes to the Washington Examiner.

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Random Acts of Kindness: David and Goliath

By Wendell Williams

This is the first Random Acts of Kindness column I have written since “A Valentine for Valerie,” remembering my love and my best friend, who died Dec. 30, 2018. I dedicate this accomplishment, and my return to writing, to her. She was born the same day this article will be published, Oct. 2.

I

n late May, I was just about ready to leave for Haiti and the Dominican Republic when my Street Sense Media editor informed me that I was part of a group of our writers nominated for a Dateline award from the Washington Society of Professional Journalists. I was nominated for a commentary piece, “Guns and Our Lives: A Letter to the Open Minded,” I had written concerning guns after the Children’s March for Our Lives.

I blew it off as a waste of time. I completely misunderstood its significance until I realized this was a chance to measure my work against working journalists. But after coming home empty handed from the INSP awards in Scotland last year, I was sick with the feeling I had wasted the resources of my Street Sense support family. I remember calling my long time friend and supporter Bobbie O. to apologize for not winning.

Her response was, “You’ve got to Scotland. You’ve already won in our eyes.”

I tried my best to talk my way out of going to the D.C. SPJ event, and each reason I came up with was shot down after sharing the nomination with supporters. I ran out of excuses not to go. All that was left was my fear of someone recognizing me from when I worked in the building as a broadcaster years ago. I dreaded being asked “Wendell, what happened to you?”

The biggest challenge now was I was well over 300 lbs and it would be next to impossible to find a suit in the thrift stores to fit. In a Random Act of Kindness, five supporters pitched in and got me something I never thought I ever could afford, a custom-tailored suit. Surely now I would be able to blend in without feeling like I was wearing a “Scarlet Letter” around my neck.

On the day I attended the ceremony as I got closer to my destination, I had flashbacks of trying to distribute Street Sense Media papers outside these doors.

After getting off at Metro Center and walking what felt like a walk of shame down F Street NW — which used to be my daily walk to work — I started to hyperventilate with feelings of

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer (left) congratulates Wendell Williams as he picks up his award. Photo courtesy of Wendell Williams

inadequacy and fear of embarrassment. I said to myself, “Why go through with this anyway? The food will probably be lousy.”

So, a block away, I ducked into the McDonalds and purchased a fish combo. After finishing up my “banquet meal,” I still had time to kill before the cocktail reception. Remembering my days as a vagrant, I hung out at the McDonalds with a cup in front of me.

As I reached the front of the building, I stood around outside, took selfies, and then realized I looked just like everyone else walking past me and through the door. At that moment, I realized that the Scarlet Letter was not around my neck but in my mind. I remembered that I had been out of the media business for more than 20 years and the chances of someone remembering me were slim. So I took a few selfies and walked in. And much to my relief, I was treated like I belonged there by everyone I encountered, from the door person to the security personnel discreetly and strategically placed around inside wearing dark gray suits. I had forgotten the splendor of the elevator lobby of the Club itself. I caught myself acting like a d*** tourist, taking pictures of everything, from the ceilings to the elevator doors. Then I remembered what my football coaches used to tell us after we scored a touchdown, “Act like you’ve been there before.” I put away my phone, stepped on, and rode up. When the car door opened on the thirteenth floor, the cocktail reception was in full swing and had the feel of a TV awards show.

People started to approach me and introduce themselves. At first, I didn’t feel comfortable. And then I remembered that I looked just like everybody else. It was that suit, and no Street Sense Media badge. No one knew I wasn’t a player and that I couldn’t greenlight their next project. Everyone was moving around the room talking and networking and soon enough I was moving from group to group. Two gentlemen even told me there might even be some interest in my book ideas.

We took our seats. I could reach out and touch well-known media veterans from organizations like the Washington Post, CNN, City Paper and the Washington Times. And there I was from Street Sense Media.

The servers appeared and the meal began. I cleaned my plate before noticing many - Have an opinion about how homelessness is being addressed in our community? people hardly touched their - Want to share firsthand experience? meal. I wanted to ask the - Interested in responding to what someone else has written? wait staff if I could take the leftovers to a shelter.

Street Sense Media has maintained an open submission policy since our founding.

Street Sense was nominated We aim to elevate voices from across the housing spectrum and foster healthy debate. as a complete opinion page Please send submissions to opinion@streetsensemedia.org. with each of our individual articles recognized separately for their merit. We’d win

Street Sense Media vendors and writers Aida Peery (left) and Wendell Williams (center) were two of three contributors whose work led to Street Sense Media winning Best Commentary and Criticism for a Weekly Newspaper at this year’s D.C. Society of Professional Journalists’ Dateline Awards. Former Communications Director Jeff Gray (right) was a finalist for Best Feature for a Weekly Newspaper. Photo courtesy of Wendell Williams

or lose as a team. And then it happened. The MC read the categories, nominees, and then the room seemed to go silent: “The winner is Street Sense Media,” he said, followed by our names and the titles of our opinion pieces.

I jumped to my feet and let out a cheer and thrusted my fist in the air as if my favorite team, the Patriots, had just scored the Super Bowl winning touchdown. I looked around at the faces and laughed to myself and acted cool but I was sky high just from finally hearing my name as a winner. I got my award from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, who was inducted into the group’s hall of fame that night. I shook some hands and posed for photos as the evening ended.

As the well-heeled crowd headed out into the night, some waiting for valeted cars and others for their Ubers and taxis, I couldn’t help but feel alone. My mind went to how proud my beloved and sorely missed Valerie would be of me and the paper she loved and supported so much. We had beaten the big boys. I looked up into the night sky thought of her and started walking toward Metro Center with no one to share this with.

For me, my editor, staff, and fellow formerly homeless writers, the night was a moment to remind others that homelessness is the state of one’s housing situation and in no way indicates what one can or can’t achieve.

Wendell Williams is an artist and vendor with Street Sense Media.

Join the conversation, share your views

Wendell Williams prepares to enter the National Press Building on the night of the D.C. Society of Professional Journalists 2019 awards banquet. Photo courtesy of Wendell Williams

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art Fall is Arriving

By syBil taylor // Artist/Vendor

Summer is over: BBQs, camps, fishing, tanning, and gardening; Enjoying the pools or the beaches; The birds chirping, squirrels climbing, bees buzzing; Cricket’s singing a lovely evening song; Lighting bugs that light up all colors of the night; Flies, worms, ants, and butterflies; All are part of summer.

Many sights and much fun: Going to the zoo and seeing the animals; Popcorn, ice cream, snow cones, cotton candy; Hamburgers, hot pretzels, and nacho cheese chips; Local amusement parks with all their rides; Many museums or the Botanical Garden, with its lovely plants full of love and smiles; The cool breeze from the air conditioning or the fan; Cooling out with a slice of melon, grapes, or strawberries.

But the heat is passing.

Fall is beautiful: With pumpkin spice in coffee or tea; Pastries of all sorts, warms drinks and hot soups; The trees losing their green, Turning browns and oranges; Time for the jackets, sweaters, and long sleeves; Hats and closed-in shoes, too— no longer sandals; So long summer and hello Fall: The birds will still chirp; The squirrels will start looking for nuts on the trail; The weather is changing, with cool breezes ahead; The clocks will go back, And the night will arrive faster.

Enjoy!

Image courtesy of Dustytoes/Pixabay

Treading the Waters, PT. 21

Love and Science

By ron DuDley A.K.A. “pooKanu” // Artist/Vendor

I fell in love with the smartest women that I ever met.

She so smart, she bright like the sun and moonlight.

She's a women, she's a lady She's a mom and daddy's baby.

She read books, she like sports, we a team, we a force.

I met her in science class, we dissected a frog.

Then we took it to the river, let it float on a log.

Then we filled up a balloon, full of air with a message.

It said, “I love you, Baby.” I hope one day that you get it.

Science was the energy that brought together That's why it's easy to say I love you forever and ever.

We use to watch the stars just to see if they fall.

Then we'd watch our favorite movie, “Love and Basketball.”

Then we turned down the light, made love, and kissed you g’night.

PREVIOUSLY: When we were last with Gerald in his hometown of New Orleans, he was on the streets running with his new friend Minew, and police officer McNeill, who was tough but fair, had taken notice...

I still got the same egg that I protect with my life We fell in love, we fell in love, Then I made you my wife.

Love and Science.

To be continued.

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McNeill told a few guys, big dope dealers, “when I get ya, I’m gonna get you right.” I never forget the day he got Juan Flower.

Yeah, Juan Flower wind up with 190 years in the penitentiary for messing with this dude, Rev. Rev like a preacher. Rev was the big man.

Rev was a good guy, but Juan was running for him. Really he was running for the high, cause Rev was making all the money.

McNeill come to Juan Flower and told him. He say, “I’m gonna give you a heads up on it. You know we got you on surveillance.” Mean they wachin’ him.

“We know who you dealin’ from. I hope you know what you just got. It’s any day when they drop the warning to come get you.”

It was a Thursday or Friday back in the back of the projects. In the Calliou, it’s like you shopping in the Mall back there on Friday. Everybody moving.

Dope moving. The hookers moving. It’s like the whole project begin to sell.

So, they dropped it, they must have dropped it. They come and got him. He tried to run.

He had sold a lot of narcotics to undercover police. But he never did know that they had an indictment and a warrant out for him. He never did know. They had about 37 counts of distribution of heroin to a police officer, but he didn’t know.

But the Feds already know when they come for him. I seen him that morning when they snatched the dude up. I’m like, “Damn, he got hit hard.”

But matter of fact, McNeill told him, “It’s the same bullshit I told you over 10 days ago. So you couldn’t run from it.”

After they had they case, Juan Flower got 190 years. The girl that was with him got a life sentence. Rev got life.

Everybody got tied down. I don’t know the day that they home, or what’s the situation, but I know that’s a lotta time.

So my man Minew, I told him, “Man, you gotta watch the Feds.”

He say, “We know who they after.”

After that, Minew was kicking the bobo to me about this dude.

“Man, I don’t know if you know Clayton, Sam Clayton.”

nS

By GeralD anDerson Artist/Vendor

My science her belly, Girl, you so amazing.

They say we having twins, two times the amazement.

We fell in love in church on an Easter Sunday Think I found your egg on an Easter Monday.

StreetSenSeMedia.Org

// 13

Rise

By reGinalD BlacK // Artist/Vendor

We can rise and go forward

My gift

By Brianna Butler // Artist/Vendor

We can rise if you look upon the high hills and see from where your help cometh. You should wake up with a smile and a positive mindset. You must put in some work by means of looking for good things out in the world, like people doing good deeds. Go looking for jobs and something you love to do so you can have a better life. One solution to homelessness is to get free schooling for career opportunities. We also need higherpaying jobs so the formerly homeless people can pay their rent and their utilities and buy groceries. We need more effective housing programs so childless low-income people can qualify as easily as those with children.

By Queenie featherstone Artist/Vendor

I know my skill.

I'm so thrilled My talent brings me money.

Can I survive?

Or can't I? With my skill No time to chill.

I'm trying to rise.

Illustration by Ibn Hipps

Chocolate City, D.C.

artiSt/vendOr

Illustration by Daniel Ball, artiSt/vendOr

My history is here

By Barron hall // Artist/Vendor

My dad died on these streets without a home.

Did I say D.C. Chocolate City was his own?

He died houseless and all alone.

My big brother's been homeless on these streets for years.

Does the government even care, about this city I live in?

Her father was a sharecropper, South Carolina I believe.

He helped make Washington D.C.

Did I say D.C. is my home?

No longer homeless and all alone.

Did I say my great-great grandma helped to free the enslaved?

Brought them all the way to what they call Harlem, New York, today.

Thank the Lord, my mom even had a place to call home.

Maybe it was the same angel, that called me about that one-bedroom,

Made her way to Chocolate City, D.C. The first housing advocate, I believe.

Nice as can be, with a washer and a dryer.

Who would believe, my brother, is getting all the help he needs?

Did I say...

Did I say, D.C.?

dOr

Did I say I saw my mother today, sleeping on the side of the road?

D.C. is her home.

Can't afford her medicine, though, turned away and all alone.

Childcare and a good job shouldn't be hard to find.

I pray for my sisters and brothers not to be turned away and all alone.

So glad my grandma prays for me.

Did I say first generation, born in Washington D.C.?

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Did I say D.C., Chocolate City, is my hometown?

Houseless and all alone?

I was born in D.C., Chocolate City.

Houseless now, but got a call today.

Must have been an angel: three-bedroom apartment for me and mines.

His chronic homelessness is finally ending.

Maybe it was the same angel, guardian angel, that has been looking out for me.

I’m a native fifth-generation Washingtonian and a third cousin to Frederick Douglas.

Brothers and sisters of color, here in this nation’s capital, I believe we are in trouble if Jesus doesn’t come soon, because a lot of us are giving up.

Being a believer in the word of God, I try to make sure I write about the truth when it’s about being poor and homeless in Washington, D.C. I told my best friend that, for me and my house, I plan to hold on to the truth that God is at hand. The handwriting is on the wall, just look around. There is no salvation coming from the America that is now.

The word of God is our only relief. Our only true hope is the Kingdom of God which Jesus went to build. He said “In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”

(John 14:2) This temporary place on Earth was for learning and getting us ready for our permanent solution.

So, like John the Baptist said, repent and get ready, watch, and wait on Jesus. In the meantime, we must help each other hold fast. Thank you.

Vincent Wat

I just thank God grandma prayed for me and the Lord let me see.

Sometimes I feel like my heart beats for the brave and that day where there are no more worries for the homeless.

Did I say Chocolate City?

With more vanilla D.C. than it used to be?

A place to call home, but turned away and all alone.

Illustration by

By roBert Warren // Artist/Vendor

Turned away and all alone, left on that road to nowhere.

Did I say me and mines?

Yeah, I got my baby girl and my newborn son by my side.

Did I say their daddy was on the run?

to get up from sleep. to take up arms, and respond warmly. to ascend. appear above the horizon. to move upward. a higher level. to come into being. a state of being higher than the upward movement. the beginning, origin the elevation of the distance. how we together can get up from sleep, and respond warmly.

Together, we can appear above the horizon.

1 4 // St reet Sen se Me di a / / O ct. 2 - 1 5 , 2 019

Fun & Games

Challenging Sudoku by KrazyDad, Volume 1, Book 2

Sudoku #2

6 2

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7 1 4

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Answers

6

9

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5 8 7 3

5

© 2013 KrazyDad.com

Fill in the blank squares so that each row, each column and each #1 3-by-3 block contain all of the Sudoku digits 1 thru 9.

6 4without 7 5 1 3 puzzle 2 guesswork.

If you use logic you can solve the

SUDOKU: Fill in 8 9 the blank squares 1 shows 5 2a logical 4 8order9to solve 7 3the puzzle.

6 so that Need a littleeach help? row, The hints page Use it to identify next square you should solve. Or use the answers page each columntheand 7 9 8 6 3 1 2 4 5 if you really get stuck. each 3-by-3 block 2 3 7 5 4 6 8 9 1 contain all of the digits 1-9.

Last edition’s Puzzle solution >>

9 8 6 4 5 2 8 1 4 7

5 1 3 6 9

1 2 7 4 6 3 3 9 8 5 2 7 7 6 4 9 1 8 9 5 2 3 7 4 8 1 3 6 5 2

Sudoku #3 4 1 6 3 7 5 8 4 3 2 9 1 2 4 7 8 8 6 3 9 5 9 1 7 6 7 4 5 9 3 5 2 1 8 2 6

8 6 7 5 1 2 9 4 3

Sudoku #5 1 7 8 3 4 2 5 7 9 3 6 1 6 5 7 4 2 9 4 5 3 8 1 6 5 6 9 2 7 4 3 8 8 1 2 9

2 4 9 6 9 1 5 8 4 3 2 8 8 1 6 9 7 2 4 3 7 1 6 5 7 5 3

2 9 9 3 5 6 6 1 4 7 3 4 8 2 1 8 7 5

7 5 2 1 4 8 3 9 5 2 8 6 1 3 6 7 9 4

5

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Sudoku #7 6 7 4 8 2 9 3 1 5 9 5 1 7 3 4 2 8 6

Rules for driving in New York: 1. Anything done while honking your horn is legal.

2. You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers on.

3. A red light means the next six cars may go through the intersection.

3 4 7

Celebrating the life of my dear great aunt

By Anthony Carney Artist/Vendor

My great aunt, Dorothy Ruth Elliot Avent, went on to glory on August 25. She was 91 years old at the time of her death and a firm believer in Christ.

She was born in North Carolina and worked at a funeral home as assistant director. Her job and her calling was to help with the grief of loved ones that have passed.

As a child, she would comfort me. When my Challenging bygreat KrazyDad, 1, Book 2 sister passedSudoku away, my aunt toldVolume me “God needed His little angel Sudoku #2 back.” She always had words of wisdom. She comforted all of my family 3 1 2 5 9 6 7 8 4 members and helped everyone she met along the 4 5 9 2 8 7 6 3 1 way in her journey.

She lived 7in style 8 6and 4she1went3 onto 2 glory.

5 9 She is buried at Cheltenham State Veterans Cemetery 9 2 3 1 7 5 8 4 6 in Maryland. She was so special that 12 Maryland 4 motorcycles 8 9 3 escorted 2 1 7her to 6 on 5 be state troopers buried there.5 7 1 8 6 4 3 9 2 She always told me that if I preach more, even 2 3 7 6 5 9 4 1 8 just a few sentences of God, it will spread love.

8 with 9 4me3every 2 day 1 try 6 spread 5 to 7 so, I carry her Anthony Carney (right) and the pastor who presided at his great aunt Dorothy Ruth Elliot Avent’s funeral. courtesy of Anthony Carney the love. 1 6 5 7 4 8 9 2 3

Sudoku #4 8 2 4 7 6 1 5 9 9 7 3 2 2 5 6 8 1 8 7 3 3 4 9 5 5 9 2 4 7 3 1 6 4 6 8 1 Sudoku #6 4 6 1 5 3 8 7 9 9 2 5 4 6 5 4 8 7 9 2 1 8 1 3 2 2 3 6 7 5 7 8 3 1 4 9 6

3 5 8 4 6 1 4 7 9 6 1 2

6 1 2

7

9

3

8 4 5 3 9 1 4 5 2 7 6 8 7 3 1 8 6 5 8 9 2 4 2 9 5 3 7

3

2 6 7

5 4

1 9

8 1 7 3 6 9 5 4

8

2

Sudoku #8 8 4 2 5 1 9 7 3 4 8

7 6

7 9 4 6 5 3 1 8 1 9 2 8 4 3 7 5 6 9 8 4 6 2 1 5 3 7 2

6 9 3 2 1 5

Author Gene Weingarten is a college dropout and a nationally syndicated humor columnist for The Washington Post. Author Dan Weingarten is a former college dropout and a current college student majoring in information technology. Many thanks to Gene Weingarten and The Washington Post Writers Group for allowing Street Sense to run Barney & Clyde.

StreetSenSeMedia.Org

cOmmuNItY sErVIcEs

SHELTER HOTLINE Línea directa de alojamiento

(202) 399-7093

YOUTH HOTLINE Línea de juventud

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE Línea directa de violencia doméstica

(202) 547-7777

Education Educación

Health Care Seguro

Clothing Ropa

Legal Assistance Assistencia Legal

Case Management Coordinación de Servicios

Food Comida

Employment Assistance Assitencia con Empleo

Transportation Transportación

Showers Duchas

All services listed are referral-free Academy of Hope Public Charter School 202-269-6623 // 2315 18th Place ne aohdc.org

Bread for the City 202-265-2400 (nW) // 561-8587 (Se) 1525 7th St., nW // 1640 good hope rd., Se breadforthecity.org

Calvary Women’s Services // 202-678-2341 1217 good hope rd., Se calvaryservices.org

Catholic Charities // 202-772-4300 catholiccharitiesdc.org/gethelp

Central Union Mission // 202-745-7118 65 Massachusetts ave., nW missiondc.org

Charlie’s Place // 202-232-3066 1830 connecticut ave., nW charliesplacedc.org

Christ House // 202-328-1100 1717 columbia rd., nW christhouse.org

Father McKenna Center // 202-842-1112 19 eye St., nW fathermckennacenter.org

Food and Friends // 202-269-2277 219 riggs rd., ne foodandfriends.org (home delivery for those suffering from HIV, cancer, etc)

Foundry Methodist Church // 202-332-4010 1500 16th St., nW id (Friday 9am–12pm only) foundryumc.org/ministry-opportunities

Friendship Place // 202-364-1419 4713 Wisconsin ave., nW friendshipplace.org

Georgetown Ministry Center // 202-338-8301 1041 Wisconsin ave., nW georgetownministrycenter.org

Jobs Have Priority // 202-544-9128 425 2nd St., nW jobshavepriority.org

Loaves & Fishes // 202-232-0900 1525 newton St., nW loavesandfishesdc.org

Church of the Pilgrims // 202-387-6612 2201 P St., nW food (1-1:30 on Sundays only) churchofthepilgrims.org/outreach

Martha’s Table // 202-328-6608 2114 14th St., nW marthastable.org

Community Family Life Services 202-347-0511 // 305 e St., nW cflsdc.org

Miriam’s Kitchen // 202-452-8926 2401 virginia ave., nW miriamskitchen.org

Community of Hope // 202-232-7356 communityofhopedc.org

Covenant House Washington 202-610-9600 // 2001 Mississippi ave., Se covenanthousedc.org

D.C. Coalition for the Homeless 202-347-8870 // 1234 Massachusetts ave., nW dccfh.org

BEHAVIORAL HEALTH HOTLINE Línea de salud del comportamiento

1-800-799-7233

Housing/Shelter Vivienda/alojamiento

1-888-793-4357 Laundry Lavandería

Patricia Handy Place for Women 202-733-5378 // 810 5th St., nW

Samaritan Inns // 202-667-8831 2523 14th St., nW samaritaninns.org

Samaritan Ministry 202-722-2280 // 1516 hamilton St., nW // 202-889-7702 // 1345 u St., Se samaritanministry.org

Sasha Bruce Youthwork // 202-675-9340 741 8th St., Se sashabruce.org

So Others Might Eat (SOME) // 202-797-8806 71 O St., nW some.org

St. Luke’s Mission Center // 202-333-4949 3655 calvert St., nW stlukesmissioncenter.org

Thrive DC // 202-737-9311 1525 newton St., nW thrivedc.org

Unity Health Care // 202-745-4300 3020 14th St., nW unityhealthcare.org

Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless 1200 u St., nW // 202-328-5500 legalclinic.org

The Welcome Table // 202-347-2635 1317 g St., nW epiphanydc.org/thewelcometable

My Sister’s Place // 202-529-5991 (24-hr hotline) mysistersplacedc.org

N Street Village // 202-939-2060 1333 n St., nW nstreetvillage.org

New York Avenue Shelter // 202-832-2359 1355-57 new york ave., ne

// 15

Whitman-Walker Health 1701 14th St., nW // 202-745-7000 2301 Mlk Jr. ave., Se // 202-797-3567 whitman-walker.org

For further information and listings, visit our online service guide at StreetSenseMedia.org/service-guide service-guide

HElp! WE’rE lOOKINg FOr

volunteers become a Street Sense Media volunteer and help further our mission to empower people experiencing homelessness. get to know the vendors and make a difference in their lives and yours! you’ll support hard-working newspaper vendors by volunteering your time, four hours a week, distributing newspapers at the Street Sense Media office. if interested, please contact gladys robert gladys@streetsensemedia.org 202-347-2006 (x10)

Film asks, “What Happened 2 Chocolate City?”

John Russell reflecting on today’s youth and generational changes.

Photo courtesy of Migkeb Productions

By Steve Lilienthal Volunteer

Filmmaker Mignotae Kebede’s documentary film, “What Happened 2 Chocolate City (WH2CC),” ignites both memories and concerns for many Washingtonians.

WH2CC closely follows the lives of three D.C. residents of varying ages, linking events in the city’s past to the shape of the current housing market in changing neighborhoods.

The concern is the displacement felt by many longtime African-American D.C. residents and their families whose needs receive short-shrift from development-driven policymakers, according to Bruce Purnell, executive director of The Love More Movement, which promotes safe communities. Purnell appears in WH2CC. D.C.’s population has changed from 71.1 percent Black in 1970 to 47.1 percent Black in 2017. Now, many AfricanAmerican residents with low and moderate incomes feel their homes, lives, history and dignity are being evicted by unmindful newcomers and uncaring federal and city policymakers.

“We have fewer residents than D.C. had at its peak population and more housing than the city ever had, but more homelessness. The numbers don’t add up,” Kebede said. The 1950 Census recorded 802,178 residents in D.C. while the 2018 estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau was 702,455 people.

Kebede hopes her film will inform long-standing D.C. residents and newcomers alike.

Grasping the effects of gentrification and displacement and their impact on low- and moderate-income D.C. residents took time for the aspiring filmmaker.

Kebede admits knowing little about D.C. other than it was still a largely African-American city when she arrived in 2010, after what she describes as a relatively privileged California upbringing, to study international relations and anthropology at George Washington University.

A class assignment exploring the implications of a HarrisTeeter opening started her thinking more about what was happening in the District. Kebede says she vowed that if she was able to stay in the city after college she would be active in the community.

Her interest was sparked when a technician installing WiFi in her new apartment asked if she knew the history of her building and expressed surprise at how the neighborhood had changed. The technician’s comments made her wonder: even though she and many millennials who flocked to the city in the last decade are socially progressive, how many have thought about their impact on the city and its long-standing residents and families?

While New York City’s Harlem and Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhoods are gentrifying, “people know the history of the neighborhoods,” Kebede said. The difference to her in D.C. is that “the Federal identity outweighs the local history.”

An idea was born and she discovered few documentaries existed about D.C., much less one about the gentrification

Mike Perry gives insight into the multiple realities that exist within Chocolate City.

Photo courtesy of Migkeb Productions

process and the residents whose lives are displaced either by being forced to move or through incarceration.

Kebede began drafting ideas for the film in 2015, when she was 23 years old. Raising money proved challenging but a crowdfunding platform helped get WH2CC started.

Eventually, Kebede focused WH2CC on three principal characters to highlight the city and its past and present.

She was apprehensive about the reaction people in neighborhoods would display to an outsider, but she and her videographer, Mansa Johnson, from D.C.’s Lamond-Riggs neighborhood, often found surprising acceptance. “I spent a year going there one or two times a week,” she says about the Arthur Capper Senior Public Housing in SE D.C. When the first person she wanted to feature declined, John Russell, agreed. He experienced the 1968 riots and overcame addiction and homelessness before assuming a more settled existence.

Then, a fire displaced him and other residents.

“It’s empowering to tell your story,” says Purnell, who argues Kebede’s crowdfunded-film allows it to be “more organic” and to “challenge the status quo.”

Kebede herself believes getting institutional support for her film proved difficult because so much of the money in the city “is tied up” with development interests.

Ed Lazere, executive director of the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, which assisted Kebede in her research, compliments WH2CC because if “focuses on those directly impacted” by the lack of affordable housing options and that is why ”it resonates so well with so many people.”

The Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum scheduled a showing of WH2CC in March along with a Q&A with Kebede, tying it into a museum exhibition about displacement called “A Right to the City.” Parts of that exhibit have been on display at four D.C. public libraries while the museum is closed for construction. It will reopen on Oct. 11. Hits on the museum’s online reservation system showed so much interest in Kebede’s film that a second showing was scheduled for the same day. The 458 total attendance for WH2CC represents the largest audience for a film during Director of Education and Outreach Paul Perry’s six year tenure.

“People came from all parts of D.C. to see the film,” Perry recalls. “It generated a lot of interest [and] questions.”

Kebede is considering options to achieve wider recognition and distribution of WH2CC. She still wants to add some finishing touch-ups and to discuss the #Don’tMuteDC movement.

Lazere credits Kebede’s “perseverance” in coming this far.

He hopes WH2CC helps people realize that the city and its voters and policymakers are making far-reaching choices.

According to Lazere, the city could decide to better serve low- to moderate-income people like those in public housing complexes designated for demolition by ensuring they can remain close to their original homes and then return to affordable replacement housing that can accommodate their families.

The story of how D.C. manages to deal with gentrification

Photo courtesy of Migkeb Productions

and displacement is ongoing. That became very clear with the July announcement that the city plans to use private developers to revamp approximately one-third of its public housing units.

If that plan is implemented, more than 2,600 families will be displaced. Some units would be demolished and replaced with mixed-income and affordable housing. Others would be extensively renovated but also aimed at mixed-income or affordable housing.

Though the current public housing complexes are often in poor condition — with more than 40 percent of units considered to be in urgent need of repair and $2.2 billion dollars in repairs needed over the next 17 years — the decision has created anxiety and uncertainty among low- and moderate-income residents who fear displacement and gentrification. Many say they’ve known other public housing residents who moved during redevelopment with assurances they could return only to find themselves permanently estranged from communities where they felt most comfortable. Adrift in new neighborhoods, many D.C. natives seem to feel priced out and dislocated.

Kebede hopes her film will better acquaint D.C.’s young newcomers with the history of the city and its importance to African-American residents and remind D.C.’s older residents — white and black — that policy decisions made years ago have shaped D.C. today. That’s why D.C. residents — gentrifiers and older residents alike, have good reason to view WH2CC. And so do D.C.’s policymakers.

Thank you for reading Street Sense!

From your vendor Oct. 2 - 15, 2019 | Volume 16 Issue 24

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