Posts tagged Poverty
-
Homelessness advocates celebrate DC’s budget as a win
Advocates for ending homelessness in DC are celebrating the budget the DC Council passed this week, calling the investment in programs for the unhoused “historic” and “monumental.” Keep reading…
-
How public housing was destined to fail
While the US public housing system may have started off with the intention of providing quality homes to low income and vulnerable populations, those efforts were quickly dashed by how the program was created and managed. Keep reading…
-
Many bathrooms have been closed for a year during the pandemic. Who suffers?
Since the onset of the pandemic a year ago, many restrooms have been closed to the public. Public restroom access is important, as many people depend on them. And yet, in the past 12 months of the pandemic, we have seen many businesses, institutions, and parks shut their restrooms to anyone but employees and staff – and sometimes to anyone at all. Keep reading…
-
DC’s New Communities Initiative, explained
A look into the origins, goals, and limitations of an ambitious program to revitalize several DC communities. Keep reading…
-
The Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, explained
The Hodge, a 90-unit housing development in Shaw, offers affordable apartments for seniors in the District. To create these apartments, developers of the Hodge used the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program to partially finance the project. This post explains how the LIHTC works. Keep reading…
-
How Prince George’s County pioneered libraries as social outreach centers
In the late 1960s, the town of Fairmount Heights in Prince George’s County was the site of an important but controversial experimental library, one of the first to tie libraries to services for low-income communities. Keep reading…
-
The District provides more hotel rooms for some of its most vulnerable residents during the pandemic
The District is expanding its hotel accommodations for individuals experiencing homelessness that might be at greater risk of contracting COVID-19, such as the elderly or those with prior medical conditions. The Department of Human Services began moving clients into a third Pandemic Emergency Program for Highly Vulnerable Individuals (PEP-V) site last month at the Fairfield Inn on New York Ave. NE. Keep reading…
-
Why privatization has become the public housing solution du jour
Here is how the public sector shifted responsibility for offering “a decent home and a suitable living environment” for low-income families back to the private sector. Keep reading…
-
Liberty at Lorton: How a notorious prison got a new life as a housing complex
In my previous post about the Lorton Reformatory in Lorton, Virginia, I went over the history of the prison complex from its beginnings in the 1910s to its closure in 1999. In this article, I turn my focus to the long road to redeveloping the prison site and its grounds into a place that the Lorton community could be proud of and see as useful. Keep reading…
-
These maps show how public housing was manipulated to segregate DC
Since it was created for white families during WWII, public housing has been used as a tool to segregate cities, and whites in power continued to use it for this purpose as more black residents moved in over the following decades. A map project from the historians at PrologueDC illustrates the ways public housing has been manipulated. Keep reading…