jonetta rose barras: Will Mayor Bowser take low-cost housing across class lines?

When DC Mayor Muriel Bowser announced earlier this month her intention to place more affordable, low-cost housing in neighborhoods long perceived as havens for the wealthy or the near-wealthy, humanists in the city surely must have smiled. They may have interpreted her proposed actions, as presented in the “Housing Framework for Equity and Growth,” as counter to the divisive message being sent by national Republican leaders, especially President Donald Trump. 

After education, housing — affordable housing — is the single biggest concern for most Americans, particularly those in urban environments with dense populations and high market rates. Finding ways to minimize or solve the problem has vexed every DC executive since Anthony Williams was elected mayor in 1998.

Even with the creation of the multimillion-dollar Housing Production Trust Fund and inclusionary zoning, elected officials and government functionaries have been stumped in finding the right mix that would transform the landscape. Bowser’s decision to bring low-cost housing to more neighborhoods west of the Anacostia River — like Capitol Hill and Rock Creek East and West (an area including Chevy Chase and Spring Valley) — is only one aspect of her overall proposal to create a total of 36,000 units of new housing by 2025, however.

As the title of the report suggests, the mayor and her minions are focused on equity — class, not race, although the two have been entwined for centuries in this country. “Washington, DC, will continue to change — we can be sure of that,” Bowser said at the release of the equity report. “These plans are focused on how we manage that change and balance competing interests in order to ensure a vibrant, equitable and resilient city, not only for us, but for our children and grandchildren.”

For her equity plan, the mayor has indicated that 12,000 units of affordable housing will be produced throughout the entire city by 2025. That’s a steep hill to climb, especially since she wants thousands of those units in affluent areas where such housing has not been traditionally constructed. For example, the administration has set a goal of 1,990 new units for Rock Creek West; with only 80 now in the pipeline, the city will have to produce another 1,910, according to the report. To meet the goal of 1,400 for Capitol Hill, District officials say they will need to produce 1,120 units beyond those currently planned.

Unsurprisingly, everyone in the government has saluted those ambitions. Interim Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development John Falcicchio noted that under Bowser, DC has become “the first city in the nation to set affordable housing targets by neighborhood. This goal-setting strategy will help us achieve our overall mission of building a more inclusive DC.” 

Some in the District may remember back in the 1960s and 1970s when class lines in neighborhoods were blurred — not just for blacks but also for whites. David Gragan, who is white and a former director of the DC Office of Procurement, told me years ago about his family’s life in Congress Heights, where an uncle, a security guard at St. Elizabeths Hospital, lived near teachers and others. In Shaw, a predominantly African American community, neighbors rallied around each other without much consideration of income brackets. There was no shame in living in mixed-income communities. In fact, each resident learned something from the other.

Research has found that the plight of low-income residents improves dramatically when they move to neighborhoods with high-income counterparts. “Low-income children living in high-opportunity areas are more likely to perform better in the classroom and on academic tests compared to their peers in high-poverty areas,” according to data in the DC equity report. “The benefits continue to accrue as life progresses, as those children are more likely to attend college and have increased lifetime earnings, averaging $302,000 higher as adults compared to their low-income peers living in high-poverty areas.”

I understand that butterfly effect. Growing up in New Orleans, I straddled the middle-class world of my grandparents and my high school classmates, and the low-income realm of my single mother in the Desire Public Housing Complex. Our various exchanges provided tangible examples of appropriate behavior, standards and values while offering aspirational boundaries and vision.

Knowing firsthand the potential effect of such a plan, it’s difficult not to embrace it. I have been left wondering, however, what took Bowser so long to arrive at this destination of inclusivity and equity. After all, when she was the Ward 4 representative on the DC Council, she had oversight of the Committee on Economic Development, which at the time included housing issues within its portfolio. She knew the hardship of low-income renters, senior citizens and those who were physically or intellectually challenged. 

During her first mayoral campaign, she came out strongly against a proposal that initially would have separated subsidized renters at Portner Place near 14th and U streets NW from their more upscale neighbors. The two would have entered the same building from different doors; I don’t have to tell you which one was being reserved for poor people. 

Bowser introduced legislation that would have made such discrimination a crime. Interestingly, the way her bill was written, the council chairman was left to refer it to the Committee on the Judiciary — not Bowser’s. That may have been fine with her since it gave the impression of taking action but did not hold her accountable when nothing got done.

Is she implementing a similar strategy now that sounds good and will win her accolades — but which may be hard, if not impossible, to deliver? Is Bowser’s equity proposal nothing more than a shell game: Where is the affordable housing, and is it different from what is already present?

The report indicates that the city will have to use “a mix of approaches and tools” to achieve the equity housing goals, “especially in Rock Creek West, where new housing has been extremely limited to date and where land use changes must be made to the Comprehensive Plan to reach these housing goals.” Further, Bowser’s equity report also makes clear that it may look at “blending density bonuses of inclusionary zoning and tax-exempt bonds” while also offering “incentives” for apartment owners to accept housing vouchers.

The shorthand: The Bowser administration could end up simply reclassifying existing housing. On paper, it will seem radical and could bring Bowser even more national attention.

Could that be the ultimate goal of Bowser’s sudden awakening to the fact that it is neither good public policy nor good human development to keep stacking city-financed or subsidized low-cost housing east of the Anacostia River in wards 7 and 8? 

Maybe. 

Last year, Bowser was appointed chair of the National League of Cities task force on housing. This year, the group issued a report: “Homeward Bound: The Road to Affordable Housing,” which was written in part by Polly Donaldson, executive director of the DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), along with her executive assistant Richard Livingstone. 

Interestingly, one of the case studies in that report is DC’s Preservation Strike Force, which Bowser established in 2015. The project is presented in glowing terms, although DHCD took so long to get it off the ground, there was talk of pulling the assignment from that department.  

The National League of Cities report echoes issues raised in DC’s equity report, which was written in part by Donaldson and Andrew Trueblood, head of the Office of Planning. You can expect more cribbing from the league’s document. 

Bowser seems to be auditioning for some national position. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development may be a tad too small for her large ambitions. Who knows where she has set her sights in the event a Democrat claims the White House? My only hope is that low-income District residents won’t get the shaft as they did in 2014 when she leapt from the council to the mayoral suite.

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jonetta rose barras is an author, a freelance journalist and host of The Barras Report television show. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.