What Do YIMBYs and Donald Trump Have in Common?

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trump_yimby.jpg

 

What Do YIMBYs and Donald Trump Have in Common?

  1. YIMBYs and Trump are consistently complicit in the offloading of vast amounts of public property to friends in the speculative real estate market, prioritizing luxury housing for affluent singles while ignoring the affordability needs of working families. https://savedcpublicland.org/the1617project/2023/06/09/dcs-sordid-track-record-of-public-land-giveaways/ 


  2. Both Trump and YIMBYs ignore or dismiss genuine solutions that could provide DC and cities across the nation the truly affordable housing it deserves. Instead of deploying programs such as custom zoning and social housing, Trump and YIMBYs favor private developers doing the lifting and grifting instead of public initiatives, effectively spitting in the face of HUD and endorsing the privatization of public housing through “repositioning” programs. https://ggwash.org/view/97236/dcs-public-housing-agency-is-making-halting-progress-but-much-more-needs-to-be-done 


  3. Both YIMBYs and Donald Trump share a deeply troubling agenda that displaces people of color from their rooted neighborhoods without much concern or acknowledgement. This is seen vividly in Washington, D.C., where our city consistently ranks among the top cities for gentrification, with devastating impacts on longstanding Black communities with barely a blush by YIMBYs. https://journals.sagepub.com/eprint/EVDFHVYYVVSXWIYMPVQ9/full

     

YIMBYs don’t have to care about the impacts of their build-baby-build rhetoric because they are privileged enough not to bear the adverse brunt of their advocating to privatize public land and build more luxury units, this same policy that benefits the exact class of real estate players who fund campaigns of politicians like Donald Trump. 

 

 

#IZFAIL

#IZFAIL




But wait there’s more . . .

Find out why the YIMBY “affordability” program in DC, called “Inclusionary Zoning” or “IZ”, is an absolute fraud perpetuated to guise the overblown and continuing construction of mostly unaffordable market-rate luxury housing units despite the growing racial disparity and displacement in DC.


Other links of import::

 
 
 

 

DC Safety Net on Fire! Council Moves Quick on Social Welfare for a Billionaire Arena Owner While Longtime DC Families Left to Struggle to Meet Basic Needs

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Please take Action, use the Fair Budget Coalition social media kit among other resources out there to get the word out to friends, neighbors, loved ones: https://tinyurl.com/fbc-dc-2025-budget-toolkit


<press alert> DC for Reasonable Development, contact Chris Otten, (202) 656-5874

“The Safety Net Continues to Burn” as D.C. City Council Poised to Give a Billionaire Half-a-Billion Dollars in D.C. Taxpayer Dollars; Key Programs to Help DC's Families and Working Residents Remain Un- & Under-Funded

Washington, DC — The second vote on DC's 2025 Budget is upcoming this Wednesday, and it spells terrible news for DC's most vulnerable longtime residents and families. 

Here's what's at stake for DC's longtime families and residents struggling to survive in their city:
  • ERAP (emergency rental assistance to prevent eviction and housing insecurity) is funded at less than ½ of FY24 – yet the need has grown and the funds run out almost as soon as the portal opens each quarter. 

  • Housing vouchers for individuals and families experiencing homelessness are funded at less than 1/10th of the need, leaving us deeply worried about the trauma and hardship they will face in FY25 without housing. 

  • The Mayor is planning to evict 2200 families in the next 2 months (and another 1000 in FY25) from their housing in the Rapid ReHousing program. Without any housing solutions for where they will go, virtually no vouchers in the budget, and no way to pay market rate rent, these families are in immediate danger of homelessness. This is a horrific human tragedy awaiting the families and the city unless lawmakers take action.

  • SNAP benefits have not kept pace with the realities of struggling households. There were no new or improved investments in food/nutrition programs (outside of the schools) this year, even though several Councilmembers stated concern about senior hunger.


In contrast, social welfare for a billionaire (Ted Leonisis) was quickly made available by the Council who are primed to serve up half-a-billion taxpayer dollars for downtown arena funding.

“The safety net continues to burn, with the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), housing vouchers to end homelessness, and nutrition assistance each horribly, shockingly underfunded. Thousands of housing-insecure families lack access to ERAP to prevent eviction, even as landlords have doubled the number of eviction filings compared to last year and rents have risen more than incomes. There are 3,200 families facing immediate homelessness with the Department of Human Services evicting them from the rapid rehousing program — 2,200 this summer, and another 1,000 starting in the fall. And unhoused individuals living on the street routinely face encampment clearance with no corresponding investment in housing and services to promote their health and well-being. DC’s seniors, both housed and unhoused, face the highest rate of older adult hunger in the country, yet their food assistance benefits are paltry, especially in the face of high, even rising, costs for food and housing.” –Niciah Mujahid is executive director of the Fair Budget Coalition.


Advocates for DC's working families and individuals making less than $55,000/year are asking the city to raise money on the classes of income earners who have gotten wealthier over the pandemic.

Chairman Mendelson's recently proposed property tax increase on high-value homes only raises $5.7 million in FY 2025, and while a step in the right direction, measured against all that is at stake residents are demanding the Council to improve the wealth tax proposal and consider higher taxes on those with incomes above $500,000/yr.

The budget vote is scheduled for Wednesday.

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Please take Action, use the Fair Budget Coalition social media kit among other resources out there to get the word out to friends, neighbors, loved ones: https://tinyurl.com/fbc-dc-2025-budget-toolkit

More reasons to go SHIMBY and definitely not be a YIMBY or a NIMBY

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We want Social Housing in our Backyard as SHIMBYs.

Neither YIMBYs nor NIMBYs like social housing because it would decommodify shelter as we know it as human housing (hurting the pockets of the investor-class the YIMBYs serve) and bring in truly affordable housing (exposing the fragility of the racist & classist NIMBYs in their exclusive neighborhoods).

See the exploration below focusing on why YIMBYs are so dangerous to existing urban communities of working class families and neighborhoods of color.

YIMBYs & NIMBYs want the same thing!

YIMBYs & NIMBYs want the same thing!

What Is a YIMBY? (Hint: It’s Not Good)
By Patrick Range McDonald, July 14, 2021

 
Excerpts:

  • YIMBY stands for “Yes In My Back Yard.” It’s a clever twist on NIMBY or “Not In My Back Yard.” NIMBYs have a controversial reputation for fighting new development in their communities. YIMBYs try to capitalize on that by using a moniker that sounds inclusive and appealing. Don’t be fooled. 
  • YIMBYs embrace trickle-down economics or what’s now called “trickle-down housing” policy. As middle- and working-class people have long known, trickle-down anything doesn’t work — except to make the rich richer.

  • YIMBYs know developers built almost exclusively luxury housing, and that is okay with them. 
  • YIMBYs are NOT housing justice activists. But for political reasons, YIMBYs are desperate to own housing justice credentials. YIMBYs have co-opted messaging from the housing justice movement and joined housing justice coalitions. It’s a strategy that continues to this day. 
  • Despite their pro-gentrification agenda and clashes with housing justice activists, many Democratic politicians champion YIMBYism and the mainstream media too often touts the YIMBY cause. Why? Politicians take huge amounts of campaign cash from the real estate industry, and YIMBYism gives them political cover to deregulate land-use protections and allow developers to build more luxury housing — and to generate huge profits — under the guise of solving the housing affordability crisis 
  • “The YIMBY movement has a white privilege problem,” Anya Lawler, a policy advocate with the Western Center on Law & Poverty, told the Los Angeles Times. “I don’t think they recognize it. They don’t understand poverty. They don’t understand what that’s like, who our clients really are and what their lived experience is.” 
  • YIMBY leaders are consistently silent about the predatory practices of corporate landlords and developers. The silence speaks volumes.
 
 

2025 DC Budget Update — DC’s Continued War on the Working Families and Lower Income Residents of DC

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DC4RD — 2025 DC Budget Update tl;dr here: http://www.dcfeedback.com/fit2print/dc/3330

Washington, DC — May 23, 2024 — As workers who put their bodies on the line in the many capitalist wars get ready to relax one extra day before summer, the DC City Council is poised next week to take up Mayor Bowser's continued war on the poor and working residents and families (many of whom are veterans without a vote).


It was in April when the news of the Mayor's 2025 austerity budget came across newswires. The City Councilmembers remarks were stark in their analysis of what Bowser is trying to impose: http://www.tinyurl.com/dcbudget2025-take1


But, instead of lifting the burden off the backs of the working residents of DC, the Council seems to desire a shift of the pots of money around to make the hardship a tiny bit less bearable all while delivering a line of credit of half-a-billion dollars (that butts DC up against our loan ceiling) to be delivered to a billionaire (Ted Leonisis) so that luxury playtime “can save Downtown DC.” https://dccouncil.gov/council-approves-arena-funds-to-keep-teams-in-dc-receives-mayors-budget-proposal/

Numerous DC advocacy groups who care about working families and the lower-income DC residents are asking that the wealthy pay a much fairer share of the burden and the city make modest tax increases on millionaires, let alone billionaires.

The Council, at least the Chair, seem to be playing the dire need for human services to be maintained let alone increased against their understanding of a mostly apathetic DC voter base who are confused by the false propaghanda and spin. 


Officials appear to seek deflecting calls for raising taxes on the rich, again, despite overwhelming support as such: https://www.dcfpi.org/press-releases/dc-voters-strongly-support-taxing-wealth-to-raise-revenue-and-address-inequality/

Mayor Muriel Bowser, leading Phil Mendelson by the nose, all together are essentially telling the plebiscite that stadiums are far more important than the massive displacement of Black residents and the severe uptick recent evictions of longtime DC residents from their home and even from the tents.

► 'Homelessness numbers continue to rise in D.C. region, data shows.' WaPo's Kyle Swenson: “The number of unhoused individuals across the Washington region jumped by over 12 percent from 2023, marking the second year in a row that homelessness has increased, according to data released by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments this week. https://archive.ph/nuMMl

► 'D.C. clears major homeless encampment, but critical housing problems linger.' WaPo's Marissa J. Lang: “Dozens of homeless adults were forced to scatter this week to far-flung parks and slivers of turf around the District after the National Park Service and D.C. officials cleared out several sites in the Foggy Bottom area that collectively had become the last large-scale homeless encampment in the city. https://archive.ph/h94iD

If the Council truly cared would they not deploy the verve and fast action we've seen go to protecting Leonisis' Capital One Arena as we would for real DC people undergoing serious hardship as entire DC neighborhoods being emptied of their people and culture, replaced by expensive housing and homogeneity.

Perhaps this is a wrong read, but yet again this budget season, the Council and Mayor seem poised to keep the working-class under threat to unduly bear the brunt of an overall sluggish economy coming out of a global pandemic all while funding billionaires for more luxury play time.

If the veterans of past fought fascist dictators, their grandsons, and granddaughters, and great family are now being compelled into a class war by pitiful political policies that provide social welfare to the rich and downright brutal auerstry for the working families and lower-income residents of the city.

There are solutions — will the Council take them up this budget season?
— DC4RD 2025 BUDGET UPDATE, Chris Otten

The Need for a Green New Deal for Housing in DC Reaching Critical Point

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DC4RD Update — May 2024

The Need for a Green New Deal for Housing in DC Reaching Critical Point; Ongoing Discriminatory Displacement of DC’s Lower Income Communities Must Be Ended Now

The structural and systemic racism has been brutal to Black DC — with income disparities still at 1968 levels (counting for inflation).


We must find solutions fast otherwise DC will not be affordable for anyone making less than $100,000/yr.

Washington, DC – In October 2022, more than 100 DC residents spent more than eleven hours in the Council chambers (virtually) to speak in favor of DC adopting the Green New Deal for Housing bill.  

This Green New Deal for Housing legislation would help keep working class families and lower income residents in their existing homes and into truly affordable new homes under an alternative housing model — Social Housing.


Social Housing veers away from market-based profit commodification and avoids the purposeful neglect and pitfalls of DC’s existing public housing system. So what’s happening with it?

The Green New Deal bill has stalled in Council committees for almost two years without an expressed reason by city officials as to why.  Meanwhile, public properties are still being handed over for $1 by the city to developers to continue a privatized trickle-down market-housing approach using DC’s dwindling land and assets and it's not having the results we expected (Most new “affordable” units are studios/one bedrooms affordable for single professionals making $85,000/yr).

As shown below, the Social Housing solution can be sped up as the stalled legislation may not be needed at all for this alternative housing model to be implemented through existing agencies, zoning, and political will.

The Green New Deal for Housing, referenced as “Social Housing” is not public housing. 

Unlike public housing residents, Social Housing tenants will not make the annual sojourn to the DC City Council telling of the horror stories and begging for better treatment from the DC Housing Authority (DCHA). DCHA will have no role whatsoever in any Green New Deal housing units at all.

Public housing wallows while waiting for federal monies to maintain the properties. Private market-based housing rents/housing income inures to absentee private owners/corporations that spend the monthly income as they want, likely not at the properties in DC. 

Social Housing Isn't Public or Private, It's the People: Social housing has its upkeep and routine costs covered largely by the rent/housing costs paid for by the people living there. Social Housing buildings have their own democratically elected board with a direct stake in the success of their buildings by the people living there. And, Social Housing won't concentrate poverty or wealth as this Green New Deal for Housing model makes the units affordable to the people living there whether they make $100,000/yr or $20,000/yr.

Under the Social Housing model, tenants pay no more than 30% of their income towards rent/housing costs. That means even if someone gets a better job or made more income they would not have to move and instead would just pay a reasonable increase in rent/housing costs commensurate with their increasing income.  The same is true if their income decreases. 

If you lived in a Social Housing building and you make $20,000/yr, you would pay $500/month for your studio/one bedroom unit.  If you make $100,000/yr, you would pay $2,500/month. A yearly tenant survey would adjust housing costs dependent on your income, but you would never pay more than one-third of your income on your housing.


2020 US Census : Ward Level Displacement Analysis

Considering the massive displacement from DC over the past 20 years (60,000 Black residents have been compelled to leave their Chocolate City), the Green New Deal for Housing represents an alternative housing solution to substantially end the pushing out of longtime DC residents.


The market-based trickle-down housing model in DC has rocketed housing costs to extreme levels (In Washington, DC, a family of four needs to make $275,000/yr to live “comfortably”).  Simultaneously, DC housing policy is broken, setting “affordability” at prices so unacceptably high that most of DC’s “affordable” units are out of reach for working-class residents and families.  

The vast majority of DC's “affordable” units have been built for single professionals making 80% of the Area Median Income, this means for people making $85,000/yr. DC's minimum wage is $17/hr or about $33,000/yr. DC's so-called affordable housing is simply not affordable for most people making less than $55,000/yr. And, the AMI keeps going up annually thus reducing “affordability” in DC year over year.

DC's broken “affordability” policy is why folks are demanding the city pilot the Green New Deal for Housing at public sites currently being threatened with privatization for more of the same trickle-down market-rate housing.

For example, at recent zoning hearings for 1617 U Street, NW (current home of the Third District MPD station and Engine 9 fire station) witness after witness testified in support of a social housing model instead of a market-based ground lease/air rights sale for any proposed redevelopment at these 2-acres of public land.

During hearings, experts argued that a customized special use zone could be remapped at this public site to essentially require the parameters of a Green New Deal for Housing model — 70% of the units deemed affordable at a diversity of affordability levels and to include many family sized units.

On Social Housing, Director Colleen Green of the DC Department of Housing and Community Development said to At-Large Councilmember Robert White: 

“[We] … could … establish sort of the goals of social housing, by policy changes [or] if we’re … continuing to use the RFP [process] … we [can] request projects that meet the [social housing] goals of what we’re talking about … that band that we’re not meeting … the 0- to 30% [AMI], the lowest income bands built. … It’s a matter of our policy direction, are we going to put more money in, are we going …  to fund at this [60-80%AMI] level or we’re going to fund at lower income levels.”

The director was hinting that we don't need a whole new bureaucratic agency for social housing, we just need the political will and funding (and possibly special use zoning) to do it.

The displacement of DC's long time neighbors and established communities can begin to end once the Green New Deal is deployed in DC. It's past time for a Social Housing pilot program and residents are asking for that at 1617 U Street NW.

Social housing or, as it is called in DC, the Green New Deal for Housing,  was recently profiled by DCist's Morgan Baskin who put out a report on January 17, 2024 entitled, “There’s A Growing Push To Develop Social Housing In D.C. What Is It?” https://dcist.com/story/24/01/17/dc-social-housing-green-new-deal/

Do you agree we need to decomodify housing to end displacement and to build truly affordable housing around the city? 


Chris Otten, co-facilitator

—

DC for Reasonable Development
(202) 854-8327‬
www.dc4reason.org

SMART GROWTH FRAUDS: Exclusive Projects: UIP and more . . .

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Here's a look back to 2018 and the pattern of Smart Growthers pointing fingers and doing nothing about the status quo exclusive developments happening now.

First, here's a lowdown on the Wisconsin Ave PUD post approval and post an appeal. 

Cheryl Cort sounds off, saying “Blocked PUD helps keep W3 exclusive.” >> https://twitter.com/cherylcort/status/992041605476552705

The only thing keeping W3 exclusive is her cheering on a project that has NOT ONE affordable housing unit for a family in it. 

This is now a pattern for “Smart Growth” championing developer projects in Ward 3.  For example, the Superfresh site >>

https://app.dcoz.dc.gov/Content/Search/ViewCaseReport.aspx?case_id=16-23

Smart Growth and Cheryl Cort are happy with 10% affordability, without mentioning bedroom sizes in a part of town greatly needing more affordability for families (3+bedrooms).  She calls this project and affordability levels “commendable” while pointing fingers at folks in Ward 3 saying they are NIMBYs and perpetuating segregation.   What a farce! 

Go here and scroll down to Corporate Sponsors >>
http://www.smartergrowth.net/about/annual-report-financial-information

So, what is their finger pointing really about?  What are their motivations for seeing the Comp Plan get watered down and turned discretionary?

The fraud continued at the Zoning Commission.  Another status quo 600 new units with 5 family sized units and about 50 “affordable” studio/one bedrooms, in SW >>
https://app.dcoz.dc.gov/Content/Search/ViewCaseReport.aspx?case_id=02-38I

Despite the community opposition, you don't see any solidarity from GGW/Smart Growth down here demanding more INCLUSIVITY in these projects.  More affordable units for families.  More amenities for families.

HMMM…. why?

This needs to be checked, investigated, and exposed I do believe.

Chris Otten

—

DC for Reasonable Development
(202) 854-8327‬
www.dc4reason.org
pdf icon Exhibit156.pdf

Total Eclipse of the Mayor’s Budget: Kenyan McDuffie’s Hearing on Major City Agencies, like CFO, DMPED, Taxes, Displacement, etc..

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April 8th Eclipse Budget Hearing: DMPED, BIDs, among other city agencies (just a quick scan of some of the informative and direct testimonials — we can and will continue to move out of silos and win broad principles that can collectively move the needle in favor of longtime DC people and small biz).

Elizabeth Falcon (elizabeth@dcjwj.org), DC Jobs with Justice
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=3002

Deja Williams (info@spacesinaction.org), Ward 4, Spaces in Action “when is the budget gonna work for us! End Child Poverty! Fight Gentrification.” https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=3204

Tazra Mitchell (tmitchell@dcfpi.org), DCFPI “Racial justice means unrigging the system” https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=3902

Erica Williams (ewilliams@dcfpi.org), Executive Director, DCFPI
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=4102

David Schwartzman (dschwartzman@gmail.com), DC Statehood Greens
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=5214

Charlottie Simpson (info@fairbudget.org), W5 and FBC
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=5214

Dr. Charlene Drew Jarvis, former DC Mayor (attracting and retaining businesses in DC):
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=8096

William Jordan (whj1337@gmail.com), Ward 1:
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=9151

KMcD Responds to William Jordan:
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=9934

Diedre Simpson, Ward 5 Leadership Council, Pres of Construction Consortium
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=10668

Dejuan Mason, Ward 7 & 8, Cap Area Foodbank, Coalition for Racial and Democratic Economy, GT Law (COOP grocery stores)
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=11556

Angela Franco, DC Chamber of Commerce (Downtown Revitalization; Chinatown)
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=12228

Joan Kato, Bruce Monroe
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=12429

Adam Green, Bruce Monroe
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=12876

Jamila White Ward 7 ANC Commissioner:
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=15009

Alex Baca, Greater Whiter Washington
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=16970

Meg Maguire, 1st Congregation Downtown member:
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=16514

Shont'a High, Park Morton:
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=16970

Kenyan's response to Shawn
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=17455
KMcD: “I don't I heard you say that the residents oppose it…”
SH: “We were not even aware that that money had been allocated. We've been shut out of the meetings around Park Morton, DMPED…”
KMcD: “Let's set uyp time to chat, I want you to have all the info about the project and I want to hear about the reported bullying. We will reach out to you.”

Antonie Tabron (Career Path DC Street Team) — Pay is 17$/hr
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=19997

Paula Edwards Ward 4 Commissioner
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=22677

Chris Otten DC4RD
https://www.youtube.com/live/KJowhDuwAig?feature=shared&t=22905

—

DC for Reasonable Development
(202) 854-8327‬
www.dc4reason.org

Where is Social Housing in DC?

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In Washington, D.C., Social Housing legislation was introduced in 2022. There was a huge hearing in November 2022. We really haven’t heard much since. Let’s re-review this path to see where we may need to go!  See also the email and attachments below.

———————————————

A community-based promotion about the hearing >>
 
Interim DHCD Head, Drew Hubbard’s testimony begins here >>
https://www.youtube.com/live/KHgXxAMKiUg?feature=shared&t=36709
 
Social Housing Bill reintroduced in 2023 — B25-0191 – Green New Deal For Housing Amendment Act of 2023
https://lims.dccouncil.gov/Legislation/B25-0191

 

At-Large DC Councilmember Robert White then hosted a Public Roundtable “11.28.2023 — Making Social Housing Work in the District of Columbia”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZUPkGYTdcM

At White’s hearing, Ms. Colleen Green, New Director of DHCD speaks about social housing >> https://www.youtube.com/live/KZUPkGYTdcM?feature=shared&t=14004

DHCD, Dir. Green on Social Housing:

“Creating a new organization [Dept of Social Housing] to tackle social housing could lead to similar waste. The duplicative administrative cost alone should be reason for caution we want to make sure that when we innovate we do it in ways that increase efficiency and minimize unnecessary disruptions this is how we will have the best chance of assisting assisting the district’s tenants quickly and effectively the impact of reallocating resources from our existing programs and the potential loss of Housing and services compounded with the cost associated with the creation of a new agency should also be carefully evaluated when making decisions about the most effective course of action for these reasons it is crucial to engage in financial modeling for projects in different neighborhood markets and to create a business plan for our potential new agency to accurately assess the timeline and amount of subsidy required for the proposed agency to achieve self-sufficiency at DHCD we have studied other social housing projects and efforts in the United States that have recently been highlighted in the media in places such as Montgomery County Maryland Atlanta Georgia and Seattle Washington among others these efforts can represent important steps forward for these places and we can benefit from some of the tools they are applying to achieve their goals as you know through the commitments the mayor has made over the past couple of years DHCD has been the leader in advancing new approaches while creating a significant number of affordable housing units for example DHCD requires affording affordable housing development we assist to meet the highest environment and energy standards of any low-income housing tax credit program in the country… .” https://www.youtube.com/live/KZUPkGYTdcM?feature=shared&t=14359

“[W]e are all operating from the same one [financing] bucket. You would really need additional resources and additional um set aside or whatever appropriation whatever you want to call it in order to create more more units… What really is going to be needed to create more units is more dollars, so siphoning off sort of the existing resources to create a new public agency does not net not create more more units.” https://www.youtube.com/live/KZUPkGYTdcM?feature=shared&t=14814

CM Robert White: “What if there was money in addition to the housing production trust fund so let’s say uh the council kept it at 100 million but added 25 million to social housing projects, would that change your perception or your your view of um the [social housing] program.” https://www.youtube.com/live/KZUPkGYTdcM?feature=shared&t=14848

Dir. Green: “I think that we have the resources we need to create affordable housing. Putting that 25 million into the pot of resources that we currently have could also establish sort of the goals of social housing, by policy changes [or] if we’re using continue to use the RFP [process] … we [can] request projects that meet the [social housing] goals of what we’re talking about … that band that we’re not meeting … the 0- to 30% [AMI], the lowest income bands built.” https://www.youtube.com/live/KZUPkGYTdcM?feature=shared&t=14870

“I think that some of the things that have been said [during this hearing] in terms of um leveraging things differently looking at different financing models that can stretch our dollars using bonding capacity in a different way that could potentially create more units more savings will stretch the dollars farther so it was really interesting to talk about and hear all these ideas for different um financing models and that’s how you would get to you know additional units.” https://www.youtube.com/live/KZUPkGYTdcM?feature=shared&t=15018

“Alot of what can be done in terms of social housing model, I say, let’s take a look at the housing authority and see, you know they have a lot of projects they have unused bandwidth right there that we need to make sure those affordable units come online that are that are available to us that aren’t produced yet so focusing on the processes and procedures and making the things that we have work better is probably where I would spend my investment in my dollars um you you mentioned.” https://www.youtube.com/live/KZUPkGYTdcM?feature=shared&t=15210

CM Janeese Lewis George: “I guess my question is why don’t why don’t you see us creating social housing as a way to to create more of that wouldn’t we reach our goal faster if the district also took on took on the role and became our own sort of developer in its own right in creating housing?” https://www.youtube.com/live/KZUPkGYTdcM?feature=shared&t=15907

Dir. Green: “I think that you know developers are efficient. This is what they do. They’re always on trend with the market. We actually partner with them to figure out what’s going on in the market. I don’t think that the creation of all of these units are by developers. These were policy decisions that were made that created units at certain affordability levels. … [T]o me it’s not a matter of how it’s produced or who’s producing it, because I think the partners that we have are quite efficient in producing. It’s a matter of our policy direction, are we going to put more money in are we going you know to fund at this income level [or are] we’re going to fund at lower income levels.” https://www.youtube.com/live/KZUPkGYTdcM?feature=shared&t=15925

 

 

 

SOCIAL HOUSING BILL REDUX 2022

 
———- Forwarded message ———
From: Skolnik, Natan “Tosha” (Council) <nskolnik@dccouncil.gov>
Date: Mon, Nov 21, 2022 at 10:25 AM
Subject: COHEA Notice of Public Hearing on B24-0802 – Green New Deal for Housing Amendment Act of 2022
To: Committee on Housing and Executive Administration <Housing@dccouncil.gov>

Good morning,

The Committee on Housing and Executive Administration will hold a Public Hearing regarding B24-0802 – Green New Deal for Housing Amendment Act of 2022, on Tuesday, November 22nd, 2022, beginning at 11:00AM.

The hearing will be available for streaming on the Committee’s YouTube channel “HEA Committee” (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgy5EojaMYGtwicWSfg9NeA). It may also be viewed on the DC Council website (www.dccouncil.gov) and on www.entertainment.dc.gov.

Witnesses may join the Zoom webinar at https://dccouncil-us.zoom.us/j/82808321932?pwd=WWszZEI5QUdKMXJCRUNjWENSTmxBdz09. We ask that witnesses please use their first and last name when joining the zoom webinar, so that staff may quickly transition between panels.

A DRAFT agenda/witness list, the hearing notice, and a copy of the bill are attached. The public may view the hearing via the Zoom and YouTube links provided above and on the agenda/notice.

Best regards,

Tosha Skolnik

doc icon COHEA-Hearing-Agenda-B24-0802-Green-New-Deal-for-Housing.docx
pdf icon B24-0802-Hearing_Notice.pdf
pdf icon B24-0802-Introduction.pdf

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