By Grassroots DC, on April 11th, 2014 You like living near good schools, parks, well-stocked grocery stores, bars, restaurants, etc., but you believe that if one more high-rise condominium goes up in your neighborhood you’ll get priced out. Is it possible to have development without displacement?
Are you concerned about how the DC Zoning Regulations Rewrite is going down and will affect you and your neighborhood for the next 100 years?
Are you upset by the fact that DC Library officials are considering putting luxury condos on top of our central public library downtown?
Are you outraged by the purposely poor planning happening around our City because City officials have put a major corporate welfare program in place which gives away public property for pennies, offers tax gifts to mega corporations, and grants significant zoning entitlements to corporate developers without proof of need?
Are you shocked by the ever-widening income gap between the wealthiest and poorest DC residents?
Are you worried that you will be priced out of your DC neighborhood because rents and housing costs are skyrocketing?
If the answer is yes to any of these issues, and you want to find solutions together, please join the next gathering of
DC FOR REASONABLE DEVELOPMENT Saturday April 12, 2014 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM Meet at MLK Library Great Hall
Please RSVP by email: dc4reality@gmail.com or call 202-810-2768 For more information go to http://www.dc4reality.org
By Guest Contributor, on April 9th, 2014 
Cross-Posted from Sociology in My Neighborhood: DC Ward 6 Written by Johanna Bockman
I was struck by this comment in the Washington City Paper (Chatter, Shelter Skelter, 3/21/14) a week or two ago:
[DC] Public officials attributed the crisis to a confluence of little affordable housing and the vapor trails of the Great Recession. Reader spmoore offered a diagnosis: “The demolition and elimination of thousands of public housing units in the last 10 to 15 years has resulted in a definite spike in family homelessness. There are simply less units to house low income families in need…Society and the city seems perfectly fine with demolishing public housing, negatively stereotyping public housing, and then act so concerned about the homeless spike.”
An apartment in public housing is a whole lot better than being homeless. I happened to have dinner in Potomac Gardens on Tuesday evening. It was a great time eating, talking, and, yes, visioning with a small group of Potomac Gardens residents, local homeowners, and grassroots community organizers. This was part of Art in Praxis’ experiment, “The Future of [Your] Street” “to activate neighbors in collectively shaping the kind of community they want to live in and be a part of.” Potomac Gardens and Hopkins as public housing projects were an essential part of this vision.
The dinner guests discussed ideas that so closely resembled those concepts used in urban sociology, such as Logan and Molotch’s Urban Fortunes. They spoke about the difficulties caused by a mindset focused on protecting or increasing housing values and/or on renovating houses as an investment, especially real estate agents and investment groups seeking to maximize their investments (exchange value), as opposed to the mindset of those focused on having a home and building a community to satisfy social and personal needs (use value)(see pp. 1-2 of Urban Fortunes). Many people have a mix of these, but renters have the most interest in use value, of course. As a result, more of the neighborhood was being mobilized for those with higher incomes and for investors than for renters, especially low-income renters, and those homeowners focused more on use value.
One Potomac Gardens resident spoke so thoughtfully about how he wanted more interactions with the neighborhood like this dinner because he felt that those who were new to the neighborhood needed to know things (such as, I think, the norms and folkways of the neighborhood) to feel more comfortable in the neighborhood. This knowledge would allow people to move beyond their imaginations (or common assumptions) and fears about public housing and about the neighborhood (like assumptions about cities based on “The Wire“). This might allow for a more inclusive discussion about The Future of Our Street/Community.
Are you interested in joining in the visioning, in which public housing is fundamental to the vision?
By Ben King, on April 7th, 2014 
You can also read this post at Storify. #not1more deportation after #2million2many
Immigrant rights groups and supporters gathered for a march and rally in Washington, DC on April 5, 2014. They joined activists in over 40 cities across the country to tell President Obama to stop separating families before he reaches a total of 2 million people deported during his presidency.
The rally began in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood of DC.
Photo by the Lamont Street Collective
Immigration activists and allies appropriate imagery of monarch butterflies to symbolize the right to migrate freely, despite geopolitical borders.
Photo by CultureStrike
A crowd of hundreds marched down 16th Street to the White House.
Employers threaten deportation of undocumented workers to stop them from speaking out about poor working conditions, wage theft and abuse.
For LGBT immigrants, deportation to their home country can mean a death sentence.
At the White House, the crowd raised their voices through story and song. Son Cosita Seria uses the art-form of Son Jarocho music for political commentary.
Join the campaign by visiting notonemoredeportation.com.
NotOneMoreDeportation.com is a project of NDLON to foster collaboration between individuals, organizations, and artists to support individuals in deportation proceedings to stay in the place they call home and to build a movement to push back against criminalization and toward inclusion through organizing, art, legislation, and action.
By Liane Scott, on April 2nd, 2014 
Seventy percent of all women who die at the hands of their abusers after they have left. So much for the argument that leaving an abuser insures a woman’s safety. Is it possible that Marissa Alexander is less likely to be beaten or murdered in prison then she is in her own home? I don’t pose the question to suggest that Alexander or the one in four American women abused by their partners belong in prison but to suggest that something’s wrong if we as a society protect women who are deliberately harmed by their husbands or boyfriends by putting them in jail. What are our other options and how often are they used?
Adwoa Masozi’s video from the Free Marissa Alexander Speak Out, which took place on International Women’s Day in Columbia Heights, includes some suggestions for how we might begin to turn this kind of injustice around. Shout out to Women Organized to Resist and Defend for organizing the event. For more information go to http://www.defendwomensrights.org/
By Liane Scott, on March 31st, 2014 The DC Adult and Family Literacy Coalition, an advocacy group dedicated to advancing adult education as a vital component of the District’s education system, hosted a mayoral candidates forum in March. They asked twelve questions listed below, which cover not only adult education but also employment, poverty, health care, human rights, etc. Three of the candidates provided written responses to these questions, which you can find at the following links: Jack Evans DCAFLC Responses | Reta Lewis DCAFCL Responses | Tommy Wells DCAFCL Responses
1. USA Today and other sources have recently noted D.C to be the most literate cities in the nation, yet nearly 20% of DC adults are functionally illiterate, many of whom have a high school diploma. Why do you believe this is the case and what will you do as mayor to address this issue?
2. As mayor, how will you support research and development of computer literacy training for adults?
3. DOES and UDC-CC offer a wide range of workforce development programs but these programs all require an 8th grade reading and math skill level (in English). According to data from OSSE AFE, 90% of DC adult learners are below this level. What can the city do to help adults get the skills they need to access the training programs that will help them secure family-sustaining jobs?
4. Not everyone who is homeless lacks the education or skills needed to obtain a job. However homelessness poses significant barriers to employment coupled with discrimination from the employer. How can you help the” job ready” homeless population overcome barriers to employment and work with employers to rid discrimination?
5. I have been volunteering for two years and I have not been able to get a job due to my disability. How will you ensure that all residents who want to work are able to obtain employment, specifically those with a disability?
6. The conditions in shelters are inhumane. People looking for shelter are treated like animals. As mayor, how do you plan to change conditions in shelters?
7. What steps will you take to increase affordable housing units for the low-income population (under 40% AMI)?
8. How will you ensure affordable housing is accessible for residents who are seniors or have disabilities?
9. HHS and CMS are considering making changes to the 6 protected drug classes in the Medicaid Part D Prescription drug benefit. Specially, they are considering removing anti-psychotics by 2015, anti-depressants by 2016, and immunosuppressants thereafter. The District has spent the last 30 years de-institutionalizing mental health facilities and integrating people with physical and intellectual disabilities into the community. As a candidate for mayor, what is your position on this proposed change?
10. Our city has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control. How do you plan to address the issue of HIV/AIDS as mayor?
11. How do you plan to collect and use community input to make decisions on public programs/policies?
12. As mayor, how do you plan to address the issue of systemic racism in education, housing, and literacy?
. . . → Read More: The DC Adult and Family Literacy Coalition Asks the Mayoral Candidates…
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