By Liane Scott, on July 1st, 2013 
Budget season is over. The process takes several months starting with a budget proposed by Mayor Vincent Gray, then hearings in which members of the public comment on the mayor’s proposed budget, an amended budget proposed by members of the city council, a contingency list of items that the Mayor would like to fund but isn’t sure we can afford, etc. Finally, last Wednesday, June 26, 2014 the DC City Council took their final vote on DC’s budget for fiscal year 2014, deciding on behalf of the residents of the District of Columbia how to spend our tax dollars.
As part of Grassroots DC’s mission to provide media coverage of issues that impact the underserved communities of the District of Columbia, we’ve reported on some of the issues in question on this blog. We wanted to cover more but alas, lacked the manpower. (Feel free to take that as a veiled plea to potential contributors.)
Here’s an update, as per DC’s Fiscal Policy Institute, on some of the provisions in the budget that are generally favorable to DC’s low-income and working-class residents:
Help for homeless residents. The FY 2014 budget included many increases in funding to help homeless residents or residents at risk of homelessness. Increases included:
$2.2 million increase in permanent supportive housing, which provides housing to chronically homeless families and individuals. $1.5 million increase in emergency rental assistance, which helps prevent residents from becoming homeless. $400,000 to offer services to single homeless residents to help move them out of shelter quickly and into housing with supportive services. $5 million increase to the Office on Aging, including $3.5 million in operating funds. $1.5 million in capital funds.
Help for vulnerable families and individuals. The FY 2014 budget included two changes to DC’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program that will improve the lives of vulnerable families with children. First, the mayor’s budget included a delay in the benefit cut for families who have been on assistance for longer than 60 months. In addition, the Council also included funding to exempt some families with severe barriers from the time limit. These protections, which most states offer, give families a break from the 60-month time limit on benefits to give them time to deal with serious issues that interfere with their ability to work such as domestic violence, illness, or caring for a family member with a disability.
Help for parents who need child care. The FY 2014 budget increased funding for DC’s Subsidized Child Care program by $11 million. This program pays part of the childcare costs for parents of young children who are in school, working or looking for work but who cannot afford child care. The $11 million will increase the number of spaces available for infants and toddlers in community-based child care programs. It will also increase the reimbursement rates paid to providers by 10%. This is the first increase since 2004.
Help with rising housing costs. The FY 2014 budget includes significant increases to affordable housing. In addition to Mayor Gray’s proposed $100 million for affordable housing, the Council added funds for key affordable housing programs that had not received an increase in the mayor’s proposed budget. Including:
An increase to DC’s Local Rent Supplement Program, which provides rental subsidies to families with very low-incomes. The Council’s budget includes $1.75 million to provide rent vouchers that will help approximately 120 low-income families obtain affordable housing. Increases to Low-Income Property Tax Relief or Schedule H, which is a tax credit for lower-income residents when rents or property taxes are high relative to income. An expanded property tax break for seniors. Under current law, senior homeowners with income under $100,000 qualify for a 50 percent cut in property taxes. The FY 2014 Budget will provide property tax reductions for seniors with incomes between $100,000 and $125,000.
On the flip side, I’m not too happy about the Council’s decision to accept Mayor Gray’s proposal to restore a tax break on income from out-of-state bonds. This will reverse legislation adopted in recent years to phase out the tax break for investments made starting in 2013. DCFPI points out that much of the tax-exempt income in DC is earned by very high-income residents, including some who earn millions from these investments. They proposed phasing out the tax break for wealthy residents while maintaining the exemption for low- and moderate residents. But the Council has proposed allowing all residents to retain the tax break, regardless of income.
On the whole, the DC . . . → Read More: DC’s Budget Season All Wrapped Up
By Liane Scott, on June 26th, 2013 
According to Thomas Jefferson, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I’m not a big fan of Jefferson, but he may have had a point. So, what should we be holding vigil over in order to secure our liberty?
How about a seat at the table when the city decides to “redevelop” a long-standing public housing complex like Barry Farm? Unfortunately, at the June 25, 2013 meeting held by the DC Housing Authority to introduce the companies competing to redevelop Barry Farm Dwellings, only “confirmed” residents were allowed to attend. In other words, none of those pesky advocacy organizations like Barry Farm Tenants and Allies Association or Empower DC, who are trying to keep Barry Farm residents from being permanently displaced once the renovations are underway, as has happened to so many other former public housing residents. According to Rick White, Director of Public Affairs & Communications for the DC Housing Authority, press was welcome to “cover the event” but would not be “permitted to attend the business meeting.”
Would Jefferson have objected to excluding the public and the press from a meeting to plan how public funds will be used to redevelop public property? As a proponent of a free press, I think maybe yes. And so should we all.
What else should we be holding vigil over? Hm? I don’t know, maybe voting rights. As a slaveholder, Jefferson might not have objected to the Supreme Court’s decision to gut the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But as Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts says, “times have changed.” So perhaps, the right of the descendants of slaves to have access to the ballot is something that we should be holding onto. I know plenty of folks who don’t vote and don’t think it matters. I don’t agree but I understand their frustration.
Take for example the sanitation workers of Memphis, Tennessee. Conditions for sanitation workers in Memphis today are surprisingly similar to conditions in the 1960’s. The city is threatening to privatize their jobs, workers are not earning a living wage, and working conditions are hazardous and unsafe. The video below (produced by AFSCME’s Amy Hendricks) shows that they are still struggling for the same rights that Martin Luther King Jr., came to Memphis to help them win before he was gunned down.
<em
The voting rights that King and so many others fought and died for did not win the sanitation workers the liberty they deserve. Yet, one has to wonder how much worse things would have been for them and for the rest of us without the right to vote, which until yesterday, many of us took for granted. Perhaps we’ll find out. In the meantime, we should do whatever we can to hold public officials accountable.
By Guest Contributor, on June 24th, 2013 Cross-posted from WAMU by Julie Patel
No. 4 in the series: Deals for Developers, Cash for Campaigns
Development won the right to develop public land over two Metro stops after proposing one neighborhood receive a share of the property’s annual rental profit. The other would get 17,000 square feet of shops and restaurants.
Sweetening the deal for D.C.? The developer said no public subsidies were needed.
But years later, the developer scored a 20-year tax break worth millions of dollars. And the other proposed neighborhood benefits weren’t delivered.
What was delivered were campaign contributions to D.C. elected officials: more than $69,000 in the past decade, making Donatelli, along with its affiliates, among the top five contributors of 133 groups examined.
The Capper Carrollsburg project’s recreation center was demolished six years ago as part of a redevelopment and still hasn’t been replaced. (Photo courtesy of Anu Yadav)
Donatelli isn’t alone. A WAMU investigation of 110 D.C. developments that received $1.7 billion in subsidies found:
Flaws with benefits pledged for about half A third missed requirements on hiring local businesses, or the city didn’t have paperwork for them Another 15 percent downsized or delayed benefits, costing the city millions in lost revenue and others arguably didn’t need the subsidy in the first place Less than 5 percent of the subsidies approved were for the city’s poorest areas, wards 7 and 8. “They’re not bringing reinvestment to Anacostia but instead to places like Georgetown, K Street or Chinatown,” said Greg Leroy, executive director of Good Jobs First, an economic subsidies watchdog. “We’ve got to think strategically about where areas really need help. We can’t just think about who is writing the biggest checks.”
Developers receiving subsidies are typically required to provide public benefits such as jobs, affordable housing and parks. But the District didn’t track whether many of those benefits materialized. It has been slammed for it in several nationwide studies such as one last year by Pew Charitable Trusts, which found D.C. and 26 states do little or nothing to test the effectiveness of tax incentives to businesses.
“Who is benefiting is the ultimate question,” said Parisa Norouzi, executive director of Empower D.C. “What we’ve seen from a number of these…deals is that the developers are benefiting and the taxpayers certainly are not.”
CLICK HERE to read full post and listen to podcast.
By Guest Contributor, on June 20th, 2013 
cross-posted on behalf of the ANSWER Coalition
The ANSWER Coalition supports the work of Jobs not Jails and encourages all our supporters to participate in this demonstration
Saturday, June 22 @ 12:00 noon 4th and F St. N.W. (Judiciary Square on the Red Line) We demand: Jobs not Jail! Affordable Housing for All! Quality Schools in Every Neighborhood
Initiated By: Jobs Not Jails Coalition, Movement For Love and Unity, Returning Citizens United, PEAC-Howard University, Justice not Jails-American University, Ceasefire Don’t Smoke the Brothers and Sisters
Endorsed By: ONE DC, DC Jobs or Else, Operation Beloved Communities, ANSWER Coalition, Students Against Mass Incarceration, and more…
What is Juneteenth?
Juneteenth is the oldest known holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the United States. On June 19th, 1865 Union soliders landed in Galveston Texas, where slaves had not heard of the Emancipation Proclamation, that they were free. Freed slaves combined “June” and “nineteenth” to create “Juneteenth,” which became a significant holiday in Texas. Juneteenth spread rapidly around the country during the Civil Rights Movement. In particular the Poor Peoples Campaign of 1968 held a massive demonstration on Juneteenth 1968 which helped energize Juneteenth as a national holiday. We come together on June 22, 2013 to celebrate this important date in Black history, and continue its spirit of resistance!
Jobs Not Jails!
Despite tremendous wealth in the city Washington D.C. has a serious jobs crisis. While the city’s overall unemployment rate is 8.5%, in areas like Wards 7 and 8 the official average is closer to 20%. For those with criminal records unemployment sits at roughly 50%. The other 50% of those with criminal records are restricted to just a few low-income job categories. This fits in more widely with the District’s poverty rate of 18.7% overall, and 30.3% for children. Not surprisingly in 2011 D.C. had the biggest gap between rich and poor of any other state in the U.S.
Affordable Housing for All!
In the last 10 years D.C. has lost over half of its low-cost rental units and 72% of its low-value homes. The typical person with a low-income paid 63% of their income towards rent. Average rent on a one-bedroom apartment has jumped from $735 in 2000 to 1,100 in 2010. In the same period the price of homes has jumped 50%. The cities public housing waiting list, now closed, has an estimated wait time of 28 years!
Quality Schools in Every Neighborhood!
For years the public schools in the District of Columbia have not been up to the task of delivering a quality education for every child in every neighborhood. In a recent study of test scores from 2007-2011 the authors found that there was no meaninful rise in 3rd grade reading or math scores. It also found that low test scores almost always seemed to cluster in the poorest neighborhoods. City leaders have been far too dismissive, pushing a range of options that abandon quality neighborhood education, and mostly ignore the tight links between poverty and learning. Instead they push privitization and school closures in the poorest, lowest performing neighborhoods. The result has been progress far below that promised by city officials, and higher profits for city real estate interests and private education companies who have benefited from closed schools.
By Guest Contributor, on June 16th, 2013 
Cross-posted from WAMU written by Martin Austermuhle
The following cross-post was suggested by Grassroots DC member Pam Johnson. Would long-time DC residents be more likely to stay in their homes? What do you think of this proposal? Let us know.
Row houses in DC’s Shaw Neighborhood.
As Washington, D.C.’s population increases and the housing market picks up again, some of the city’s long-time elderly residents run the risk of falling victim to increasing property taxes that they can’t afford to pay. Now a group of D.C. legislators wants to help them.
Council member Anita Bonds (D-At Large) today introduced a bill that would exempt certain elderly residents from paying property taxes on their homes. The bill’s provisions would limit the exemption to residents over the age of 75 who have lived in the city for more than 25 years and make less than $60,000 a year.
“This is an act that will ease the financial burden on them,” said Bonds, who argued that senior citizens can more easily fall victim to rising costs of living than other residents. She said that 11 percent of the city’s population is over the age of 65, and 19.7 percent of those fall below the poverty line, a higher proportion than in other age groups.
According to the D.C. Office of the Chief Financial Officer, Bonds’ bill would cost D.C. $16 million over four years. The city’s current residential property tax rate is $0.85 for every $100 of assessed value.
D.C. already offers some relief to certain homeowners—under the Low-Income Homeownership Exemption program, residents falling below certain income thresholds and living in homes costing less than $367,000 can apply for a five-year abatement from property taxes. Residents over the age of 65 can also qualify for a 50 percent property tax break.
Bonds picked up support from both council members Jack Evans (D-Ward 2) and Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), both of whom are running for mayor and have proposed similar measures in the past.
|
Subscribe to Blog via Email
|
)% 
%categories-linked( 