The struggle at Congress Heights is highlighting some of the many ways the District’s housing crisis is one of its politicians’ own making, the predictable result of policies that favor lucrative new developments over lifelong residents. As political cronies of important politicians get sweetheart deals, displaced tenants are forced to live in terrible conditions, and the entire process governing the zoning and the disposition of land favors the wealthy development interests and promotes the gentrification that so defines the past decade in the District.
Justice First is always proud to be able to stand with residents and their allies around the District as they fight for real, equitable development and against gentrification and displacement. Recently, both Crummell School in the Ivy City neighborhood of Northeast D.C. and Barry Farm, a public housing development in Southeast, have been back before the D.C. Council fighting to transform their neighborhoods for the better, not for the wealthy.
Find here our testimony submitted in solidarity with residents in both neighborhoods as part of our shared struggle to put justice first in Washington D.C.