Pages tagged "right to housing"
Injustice at Wayne Place SE
By Rasheed Van Putten
It was late October 2017 when the former owner of my building told me that he wanted to sell the building. I immediately expressed interest, and requested that he send the proper paperwork, an Offer of Sale, as required by the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA). Verbally the building owner would agree to send this document, but in deed his true intentions were clear.
The building owner's failure to provide an opportunity for the tenants to purchase the building was apparent and highlighted on February 17, 2018 when he appeared at my doorstep unannounced with a waiver that he wanted me to sign immediately. Of course I refused and took the waiver to ONE DC and Office of the Tenant Advocate. I was advised during free counsels by both organizations not to sign the waiver. After some discussion, both organizations were able to clearly identify that the TOPA process was not yet in motion.
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| 113 Wayne Place SE |
We soon found out that the building went up for sale in October 2017. An illegal sale of the building had occurred. I was advised to file a formal complaint with the Office of Housing and Community Development (OHCD). After confirming OHCD's mailing address and email address, I used certified mail and email to file my complaint. I received an auto-reply stating someone would follow up with me within 24 hours.
After three days I decided to visit OHCD in-person. I was told that neither of my complaints were received even though we agreed that I had the proper mailing information. The OHCD employee that I spoke to agreed that my TOPA rights were violated, but tried to convince me that the sale of the building was not illegal. She advised me against forming a tenant association and assured me that it was best to file a lawsuit to receive compensation.
Collaboration between local government and housing developers is no secret to most concerned citizens and has even been reported on by news media. This is a conspiracy against the working class Black people in DC, especially those in poverty.
We, the tenants, need ownership of the building at 113 Wayne Place SE to protect ourselves by assuming our God-given right to exercise self-determination. To control of our own affairs is the only way we will build a stronger community. Please support this effort to be an example of economic democracy.
Housing is a human right, so please heed this call for community control over housing and land in Washington, DC and other gentrifying cities!
Why D.C. Government Favors Luxury Condos Over Affordable Housing in Congress Heights
By Justice First
On Wednesday, June 27th at 10:00AM, Congress Heights tenants and their lawyers will be back in court demanding an end to slum conditions, deceitful deals, gentrification and displacement. Join Justice First and the Alabama Ave/13th Street Tenant Coalition in packing the courtroom! Address: 500 Indiana Ave NW, #518 Click here to RSVP
A major falsehood is being perpetrated by public and private sector supporters of the redevelopment project at Congress Heights: that the reason the District government refuses to use its powers to help a non-profit developer build 200 units of affordable housing there has nothing to do with the direct ties District government leaders have to a development group that wants to build luxury condos and offices in the same space. This lie is pushed despite the clear, deep political, financial, and personal relationships that facilitate exactly this sort of cozy relationship between public and private actors.
The actions of the District reflect that though since the beginning of the development process, the government has claimed it has little to no power to act, it has in fact helped facilitate the private business deal. A combination of continuing old practices and specific contemporary action have directly led to the current impasse, in which a massive affordable housing development is being held up by luxury condo investors.
The District’s actions to facilitate displacement and gentrification at the site start at the very beginning. The Office of Planning (often referred to as “OP”) has to certify that a project meets certain requirements to be presented to the Zoning Commission (often referred to as the “ZC”) for approval. Justice First has argued for years that the process by which the OP proceeds is highly problematic. Frequently, including in this case, it is very clear from the start that developers actually do not meet the requirements. In fact, most applications presented to the ZC take the approach of seeing what requirements they can get away with ignoring without getting caught. Often, the requirements that ‘fall through the cracks,’ as we’d be led to believe, have to do with providing affordable housing options.
In this particular case, often repeated around the District, it was very clear the development team’s proposal did not meet the statutory requirements for affordable housing – something the commission acknowledged right away when Justice First pointed it out at a ZC hearing. This reveals a larger issue: Why does OP not use its authority more broadly? The OP seems to take the position that if a proposal comes within the ballpark of these rules, the ZC can figure out the rest. This means, among other things, that many projects move forward with far less affordable housing than they are supposed to facilitate. The zoning experts on the OP and ZC know what the regulations are, but leave it to community members to point out shortfalls.
So just the process of getting to the ZC is weighted heavily toward developers and facilitates their attempts to do end runs around the actual zoning rules. This is a longtime process at OP and one that makes the Bowser administration, by allowing it to continue, complicit in this structural aspect of gentrification.
Next is the Zoning Commission itself. After a 2014 court case in which the D.C. Court of Appeals took the ZC to task, Washington Business Journal noted “The Zoning Commission has never rejected a PUD application before, and it does have a tendency to adopt applicants’ draft orders nearly word-for-word.” The court's own words in that case directly pertain to a central issue in the Congress Heights dispute: “Although we have not independently verified the precise calculation, we have no reason to doubt the … claim, which the developer does not dispute, that the commission’s order is an approximately 99.9% verbatim adoption of the developer’s proposed order...The commission even adopted almost all of the grammatical and typographical errors in the developer’s proposed order.”
The mayor, of course, appoints the majority of ZC members. If the ZC is pliable and amenable to the needs of developers to the extent that it is actually ridiculed for it in court, it seems fairly clear that the mayors who appoint ZC members must share a great deal of the blame. This is another example of legacy practices making the D.C. government complicit in displacement and gentrification.
More germane to this project has been the saga of 3200 13th St. SE. The building, which sits empty, sits on the same footprint as the other properties even though it is independently owned by the District. The first ask of tenants was that the District government, which has significant legal leverage due to unpaid loans, take control of the property and use their public ownership to help the tenants leverage non-profit developers to create significant affordable housing.
The District, despite admitting its ability to do so in a D.C. Council hearing, refused to do so. Then, after Congress Heights tenants were able to find a non-profit developer and set the stage for a large affordable housing development, tenants and their allies resurrected this demand.
Not only was the District unresponsive; it then secretly took control of the building. Once that move was brought into the open it seemed like the way was clear for tenants to not only exercise their rights to purchase their own buildings, but, with a little help from the District, for the way to be paved for 200 units of affordable housing.
In a public meeting with tenant leaders and Ward 8 Councilmember Trayon White, the director of the District of Columbia Housing and Community Development Agency (DHCD) made it clear that while they have the power to work to promote the broader affordable housing proposal, that they prefered to place the property on the open market for anyone (read: Geoff Griffis & friends) to buy.
The District has the opportunity in this building to create a rare 100 percent affordable housing development - but through inertia; a government structured to facilitate displacement, slums and gentrification; and outright unwillingness to work with anyone other than a luxury condo development group, the District is instead blocking the way.
The real question is whether a web of business people and politicians so intimately connected and dependent upon each other can credibly be seen as not trading on those relationships to obtain the outcome they desire, at the expense of all other possibilities.
Click here to read the full Justice First report and click here to RSVP to pack the courtroom for Congress Heights this Wednesday at 10:00 AM.
Over 100,000 Voices Demand Congress to Reject Cruel Rent Hikes
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| Tenants and organizers outside the U.S. Capitol |
This morning at 11:00 AM, representatives from ONE DC, Bread for the City, and the Poor People's Campaign delivered a petition with over 100,000 signatures to House Financial Service Committee Chair Jeb Hensarling to demand the protection of housing rights for low-income renters across the United States.
After cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthiest people and in the middle of an historic national housing crisis, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson and President Donald Trump have asked Congress to pass legislation to raise rents for all residents of public and subsidized housing and triple rents for the lowest-income residents.
This cruel proposal has sparked outrage from people across the country and in the District, where the proposal would mean a rent hike of $900 per year for the poorest families, and would put seniors and families with young children to risk of homelessness in the nation’s capital.
Local and national groups including Right to the City, an organization of which ONE DC is an organizational member, have collected over 100,000 signatures from people demanding Congress refuse to pass any proposal to raise rents and instead make the investments necessary in HUD to provide housing assistance to everyone.
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| Keisha, Janice, & Angie - Members of the Shaw Housing Education Team |
“The housing crisis has reached emergency levels. More than half of all Americans spend over 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities, including me and my family,” said Paulette Matthews, a resident at Barry Farm Public Housing. “Now Ben Carson and Trump want Congress to help them make it worse. I’m proud to stand with people all over the country in telling Congress to remember who they work for and reject this cruel proposal."
The petition delivered was sponsored by Americans for Tax Fairness, CarsonWatch, Center for American Progress Action Fund, CPD Action, Daily Kos, MHAction, Partnership for Working Families, People’s Action, Progress America, and Right to the City Alliance. Click here to add your name to the petition.
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| People's Platform organizer Kelly holding the 100,000 signatures demanding a stop to rising costs for low-income renters |
Recent HUD proposal is another attempt to shrink federal subsidies to low-income families
By Kelly Iradukunda
The proposal made by HUD Secretary Ben Carson earlier this month to raise the rent for low-income families receiving federal housing subsidies is another attempt by the Trump administration to shrink federal subsidies for the neediest families in the country.
These proposals would triple the rent for certain families. The question that everyone is asking themselves is, considering the market rate prices and considering what the minimum wage, how are these families going to afford rent? Particularly, here in D.C., research conducted by ONE DC members found that a person working for a minimum wage would need to have FOUR full-time jobs to be able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment at market rate rent. According to the Washington Post, Carson's dangerous proposal will put almost 1 million children at risk of homelessness if it gets approved by the Congress.
We are in the middle of a housing crisis. It is unthinkable that the Trump administration’s response to the crisis is to raise rent for the poorest families in the country. No one should have to choose between rent and food for their children. These proposals will lead to an increase in homelessness and make it harder for low-income families to achieve financial stability. We are calling the Congress to refuse this proposal and stand up for low-income families.
"They don't even treat dogs this badly"
By Dominic Moulden
"They don't even treat dogs this badly." This is the statement Congress Heights resident and leader Robert Green made when the tenants, the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs and ONE DC discussed Congress Heights tenants' struggle at the UDC Housing Law conference several years ago.
I traveled all the way to East London only to hear the same story from Beverly Robinson, a Maroon Jamaician immigrant housing leader and organizer who is the ONLY person living in a 172-unit Aylesbury Estates Council Housing apartment located on the scenic 8th floor with spectacular views that the monied class scheduled for demolition. Beverly actually owns her unit but the Council Estates Board voted to sell the entire Aylesbury Estates development, which has displaced thousands of families.
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| Beverly showing contaminated water from her unit |
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| View from the 8th floor showing the ongoing demolition |
International Conversations: The Global Housing Crisis
by Joe Hoover, ONE DC (International) Member & author, Reconstructing Human Rights
This is Part 1 in a series about Resource Organizer Dominic Moulden's visit to London in March 2018
For a number of years I have been trying to bring Dominic to London. This year I was finally able to do it. In March, Dominic visited London to do some teaching with me at Queen Mary University of London where I work. Our original plan was for Dominic to speak with students in two of my classes about his experience as a community organiser and the work of ONE DC, and to be part of a public lecture on justice in the global city. Even the most carefully arranged plans go awry, however, as Dominic’s visit coincided with the largest-ever strike of University faculty in the United Kingdom, which meant that there would be no classes to teach or lectures to attend while the strike was on. While I was briefly worried that the trip would be a bust, it turned out there were plenty of opportunities for learning, teaching, and making connections.
With classes cancelled and the picket-line assembled across the entrance to the university, Dominic and I met up with Glyn Robbins (another international ONE DC member) and some of my students at the Boundary Estate in East London. Glyn was guiding us on a walking tour of the history of council housing in London (what is called public housing the US). The tour was a “teach out” activity organised as part of the strike, providing students a chance to learn about social housing in London, and meet Dominic and Glyn outside of the classroom. Glyn is a great guide and the tour prompted a number of conversations about the global housing crisis, gentrification, inequality in our cities, and what we might do to create better and more just cities.
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| Glyn Robbins leading the tour in foreground. Joe Hoover in background against the wall |
The following day, with the strike still on, we organised another “teach out” - moving the planned lecture from Queen Mary’s campus to the Ocean Tenants and Residents Association Hall across the street. The discussion we had was about the many injustices that we find in contemporary cities, with the lack of affordable and decent housing a key issue - which was fitting given that the event was hosted on one of London’s largest social housing estates. The speakers included Dominic, Glyn, and Dr. Adam Elliot-Cooper, of Kings College London. And while the audience was small due to the strike and last-minute change of venue, a lively and informative discussion followed.
An unexpected benefit of the strike was that there was more time for conversations than there would normally be, when we are usually rushing through the day’s many tasks. I know Dominic was able to meet with a number of scholars, activists, and communities as part of his visit, while also seeing many diverse parts of London. As just one example, near the end of his time in London, Dominic joined me on protest march organised by the National Union of Students and the University and College Union in opposition to the marketisation of higher education. Marching through central London, we met a colleague who was starting work on a project on the relationship between art and gentrification and for several blocks had a great conversation, which resulted in Dominic making a new and wholly unexpected connection. After the march, Dominic and I went to Brixton to visit the Black Cultural Archives, which is the UK’s only national heritage centre dedicated to preserving and celebrating the history of African and Caribbean people in Britain. Along the way we were able to trace the changing fortunes of Brixton through the redevelopment of the many market streets in the area.
Even as things did not go as planned on Dominic’s visit to London, I think the visit was a great success. And there is even more reason to ensure he comes back to London again.
Tell Mayor Bowser: Take Action for Congress Heights!
CLICK HERE to Tell Mayor Bowser to Take Action for Housing Justice at Congress Heights!
“What we are fighting for is our right to live in safe and affordable housing.”
-Ruth Barnwell, President, Alabama Ave/13th Street Tenant Coalition
The Alabama Ave/13th Street Tenant Coalition is the tenant association consisting of the residents of the buildings above the Congress Heights Metro Station in Southeast Washington, DC (1309, 1331 and 1333 Alabama Avenue SE Washington, DC, as well as 3210 13th Street SE Washington DC). The tenants have been living with conditions that threaten their health and safety as a result of the pattern of neglect that took hold as soon as Geoff Griffis (of CityPartners), and Sanford Capital, began working toward the redevelopment of the properties into luxury apartments and retail.
Over the past several years, as they personally endured abhorrent conditions and treatment, the tenants’ steadfastness unmasked a horrific pattern at Sanford buildings and impacted the conversation around affordable housing in the District. DC residents who are recipients of housing subsidies often struggle to find reputable landlords who will rent to them, and many have no choice but to live in Sanford Capital buildings. This means that Sanford Capital profits handsomely from taxpayer-funded subsidies and the affordable housing crisis.
The tenants’ struggle has led to public outcry, lawsuits filed by the Office of the Attorney General of the District of Columbia, horror expressed by city officials at speeches, public hearings, and roundtables, and extensive media coverage. The Congress Heights properties have been subject to a receivership since September 2017, and Sanford Capital was ordered to ‘negotiate exclusively’ with the tenants regarding the terms of sale for a period of 60 days, starting on November 9, 2017. On December 27, 2017, Sanford Capital quietly transferred the properties above the Congress Heights Metro station to its own development partner for the proposed Congress Heights project: Geoff Griffis/CityPartners. Griffis is now attempting to move forward the luxury redevelopment that has already caused great harm, and doesn’t reflect the wishes or participation of the residents who currently live on that land.
The Congress Heights Tenants’ Goal: Inclusive and equitable development at Congress Heights
The Coalition seeks to exercise rights under the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, and partner with its chosen non-profit developer, National Housing Trust-Enterprise Preservation Corp., in order to redevelop this land in line with the vision and goals of the people who live there, and build nearly 200 truly affordable units above the Congress Heights Metro station.
The key to any redevelopment at the site is an abandoned building that is currently under the control of the DC Department of Housing and Community Development. We are in solidarity with Alabama Ave/13th Street Tenant Coalition as they ask Mayor Bowser and the District of Columbia government to work with the community by transferring 3200 13th Street SE to the Coalition and its representatives in order to achieve a win in the struggle against displacement and for safe, dignified, affordable housing.
Sponsored by
Judge Mott Orders $50,000 to Congress Heights Receiver
On Friday, February 16th, DC Superior Courtroom 518 was packed with Congress Heights supporters. Judge Mott authorized a $50,000 payment to the receiver for the Congress Heights properties. The $50,000 is to be paid to the receiver in the short-term in order to address some of the immediate issues on the property, but will not address long-term solutions to the conditions issues at Congress Heights.
Additional funds will be asked for once ownership issues regarding the recent, possibly illegal properties transfer, are clarified. Judge Mott also made clear that it was essential that the tenants be able to live in safe, habitable conditions, until they are able to exercise their rights regarding the broader redevelopment. Tenants at Congress Heights continue to fight to exercise their TOPA rights in order to build 200 units of quality, affordable housing over the Congress Heights metro.
Tenants have been unwavering in this fight, and have deeply appreciated the solidarity demonstrated by the broader community last Saturday in the pouring rain, and yesterday in the courthouse. In the coming days, the Alabama Ave/13th Street Tenant Coalition and their attorneys will release a major update to the public, including a call for continued action in the fight to preserve and expand affordable housing at Congress Heights.
Yasmina Mrabet, Housing Organizer
ONE DC Featured on Loud & Clear with Brian Becker: The fight against slumlords in the nation's capital: Congress Heights tenants fight back
In cities nationwide, longtime working-class city residents face higher rents and increased pressure from landlords and developers. The nation’s capitol is no exception, and two groups are taking the fight to a developer’s own house this weekend, with a march up a main DC street in upper Northwest. The hosts talk about the details of the march and the broader picture of gentrification in DC. Yasmina Mrabet, a housing organizer with ONE DC, a leading organization in the group that put together Saturday’s march, and Will Merrifield, an attorney with the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless who is representing the tenants of Congress Heights, join the show.
Click here to listen to the interview with Loud & Clear's Brian Becker.
People's Platform: Call to Action for Congress Heights
Below is an update from our friends at Justice First. As part of our People's Platform call to action this month, ONE DC and Justice First are calling for continued action and solidarity with the tenants of Congress Heights! Join tenants and their supporters to pack the courtroom at their upcoming receivership hearing! RSVP here.
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