Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 14 2002 @ 02:07 PM CST

Yesterday afternoon I attended the monthly meeting of the D.C. Housing Authority. Now, I don\'t often attend official government meetings, but I attended because the Anti-Capitalist Convergence has been working on local Hope VI issues since last summer. We did some work with residents of Arthur Capper who were organizing against the Hope VI grant. The city eventually came up with a deft propaganda move that sweetened the deal for the residents and paved the way for the redevelopment grant. The city basically said that 100% of the residents would be able to return to the neighborhood after the development is finished in 2005. There is another Hope VI development across the highway from Arthur Capper, closer to Capitol Hill. Only around 7% of the original residents from the old public housing development were placed in new homes, the rest going to wealthy yuppies.

The Arthur Capper Hope VI redevelopment is part of Mayor WIlliams\' neoliberal vision for the waterfront neighborhoods along the Potomoc and Anacostia River. This redevelopment would raze public housing (which is in fairly good shape) and replace it with a mixed use neighborhood, including a marina for the yuppies who will move into the neighborhood. This is all a scheme to transfer public money, Hope VI grants from HUD, into developers\' pockets. This is eminent domain that benefits private interests.

At the meeting yesterday, you could see on display the age old way that the ruing class conspires to get the working class to work against its own interests. Since there was a resolution being considered concerning the Arthur Capper project, there was a small group of Arthur Capper residents in the room. Only these residents were the ones who sold out their neighbors. These were the neighborhood leaders who were given small favors to approve the deal. On a Native American reservation, this group would be found running the BIA-run tribal council.

The relocation of Arther Capper residents will begin this Spring or Summer, with many of these families facing years of surfing couches at the homes of friends and relatives. The city will give them Section 8 vouchers, but there is no public housing available in the city.

The reason I went to yesterday\'s meeting was because the city is getting ready to Hope VI another neighborhood of low income residents, this time Potomoc Gardens in Southeast. The city is not interested in solving the affordable housing crisis in Washington, DC. They really want to make sure that the local developers are well taken care of.

For a D.C. Housing Anti-Authority.

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Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 17 2002 @ 03:34 PM CST

http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=17925&group=webcast

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