We’re hiring a correspondent to cover public housing redevelopment

We’re excited to announce that Greater Greater Washington has received a grant from the Lenfest Institute & Facebook Journalism Project’s Community Network for a freelance journalist to intensively cover the upcoming redevelopment of the Greenleaf Gardens public housing complex. Is that reporter you or someone you know? If so, please apply or pass this along!

Greenleaf Gardens is a DC Housing Authority property in the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood and badly needs repair. The DC Housing Authority hopes to redevelop the property with more units and a mix of incomes.

Past efforts at mixed-income public housing redevelopment have been, to put it mildly, not successful. Residents were displaced for construction which sometimes stretched out for many years, making it infeasible for people to return to their former homes. Residents’ needs were often not taken into account.

DCHA has made new commitments for Greenleaf with a goal of having this redevelopment be more successful for residents and the public. It’s promising to use “build first” principles, where new homes are created before all the old ones torn down so that residents don’t have to move away, as one example. Will this process work better for residents, or not?

There’s a lot more to understand and follow about this process as it progresses. We’re looking for a writer to get to know residents of Greenleaf Gardens and amplify their voices. We aim to help the broader community understand the experiences and concerns of public housing residents, while empowering residents to lead the redevelopment of Greenleaf. We will provide in-depth and insightful coverage of a community that is typically left out of news about new developments and the housing crisis in the region.

The reporter will use Solutions Journalism principles to create articles that both increase public understanding and also aid residents and DCHA and developers in building common ground to maximize the chance of a successful redevelopment which meets residents’ needs.

As the Lenfest webpage puts it, this grant works with organizations to “shift the focus from coverage for communities to coverage with communities, enabling greater collaboration between news organizations and those they aim to serve.”

The Washington City Paper and Washington Informer also won grants this cycle — congrats to them!

Our funding supports an intensive six-month reporting project, which will involve an average of four articles per month about the Greenleaf process. Here’s the detailed job description. We’re asking for applications within a week because the grant starts right away! If you’re interested, we hope you’ll apply. If not, we’d love if you can send this to anyone who might be ideal for the role.