Author: Mari

“Then again, I’m a public servant and you’re the boss and you can use blog for whatever damn thing you like.”– Mayor Tony Williams
This made me LOL.

Theo alerted me to this some time ago but I don’t consider InShaw as a news blog so I encouraged him to send it to a larger medium like a neighborhood listserv. He did better, the Washington City Paper ran a story on the fiasco that is at 1427 5th St., NW, along with some other houses in the Shaw area that have endangered neighboring buildings because the houses are old and the contractors ignorant or cheap, or both.
I’m amazed that my crumbly pile of bricks I call home stands. It’s over 130 years old and some of the bricks are like sand. Red sand. So I’m guessing a mix of the wood beams, flooring, the bricks that aren’t sand and several Sunday prayers keep this thing up. Remove the wood and there is little to keep it steady. It’s already leaning.
These houses are old. Some 100 years old. Some older than that. Some haven’t fallen over due to minimal maintenance or due to the fact the structure hasn’t been stressed or strained. Just cause it survived the riots and the crack years doesn’t mean it will survive an idiot with a sledge hammer.

First this is not an attack on the program that is or was called Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program. For one Section 8 protects my family from the nagging horror we call grandma. It’s cheap to keep her in the Section 8 apartment complex where she spends the day judges her neighbors, and that is a good thing. Section 8 also houses other relatives so they aren’t sleeping on any other relatives couch, keeps the peace in the family, also, good thing. Second, when all the rules are obeyed and people are good tenants and neighbors, it is all good.
I think they changed the name of the program but most know it as “Section 8“. It is a program where the tenant pays a portion of the rent based on family income and the rest is made up by the government. The government almost guarantees the landlord a steady monthly check for providing maintained habitable housing to low-income tenents. The tenant gets an affordable place to live and the landlord gets a steady income stream. Everybody wins.
There are obligations for the local housing agency, the tenants and the landlord. The tenents are supposed to take care of the unit, comply with the lease, and notify the housing agency when family members move in or out. There are other rules to, but they may fall under the lease, such as no subleasing the unit, and no drug related or violent activity by family members. The landlord is supposed to meet “housing quality standards” set by HUD, collect rent, and enforce the lease. The local housing agency is supposed to annually recertify and inspect and pull financial support when there is a violation after a hearing.
Financial assistance for housing can be terminated for the following reasons:
* Any member of family has been evicted from federally assisted housing in the last five years
* Any member of family commits fraud in connection with the housing program
* Any family member is committed of drug related or violent criminal activity
* Any family member is using drugs or controlled substances
* Any family member is an alcoholic AND endangers the health and saftey and peaceful enjoyment of property for other residents
* Family owes back rent to local housing agency

Section 8 is one way to provide affordable housing in the District. Yet there are problems. For one not all landlords accept section 8 vouchers. Second, sometimes violations go unreported and the integrity of the system is harmed.

So here ends my little Section 8 report based on the 2001 handbook “Guide to the Housing Choice Voucher Program”. Any questions?

I’ve been meaning to post what few notes I took from last week’s 5D police meeting but it’s on a random sheet of paper, on a pile, somewhere, in the house. Anyway, I do remember there being talk of surveillance cameras for neighborhoods in the District, just a question of where. Frozen Tropics has a post pointing to a Baltimore City Paper article about what is it like to live with the cameras. Something to think about as from time to time Truxton citizens ask for any type of surveillance.

Walking down the street after work with B. we spy this guy in front of us with baseball cap (on backwards) and a baseball jersey with the name Kidd on the back. We were walking up Rhode Island when Plunk! Down goes a styrofoam cup filled with ice and drink on to the busy road. At first, I thought someone left a cup on the curb and one of the fast driving vehicles shook it in the road. No. As we continued to walk we see that “Kidd” has a brown paper carryout bag. He took out a sandwich wrapped in wax paper and just tossed it on the sidewalk. At this point I had no idea of what to say or even think that anything I say would stop this unacceptable behavior. “Kidd” then dropped the brown paper bag in the street and continued on. B. and I griped amongst ourselves about how anti-social was the litterbug. B. concluded that “Kidd” was well on his way to a life of failure. I figured “Kidd” must live in a garbage can because apparently he hasn’t escaped the garbage can of his mind and has no respect for his neighborhood or himself.
Really, what kind of people treat the neighborhood like an open garbage can?

|—————————————-|
| THE |
| Regular Yearly Picnic |
| of the |
| Blagden Alley |
| and |
| Naylor Court |
| Peoples |
| |
| Saturday, August 27, 2005 |
| Historical, Brick-Paved |
| Naylor Court |
| 6:00pm-9:00pm |
| (See map in newsletter) |
| |
| THIS SATURDAY! |
|—————————————-|

Food.
Fun.
Frivolity, or an approximation.
Door Prizes (lots!).
Good weather.
Real people (us!).

The newsletter is at

http://www.pro-messenger.com/Blagden/Monthly%20Pages/2005%20Monthly%20Pages/BAN_
2005_08_P1.html

I am not totally familiar with what new urbanism is. I have a vague concept of it. There was an article in the Washington Post about it. Apparently it is a suburban planned community with some stores, amenities and schools targeted to the demographic that is buying in the community. All the comforts of urban living none of the hassles?
On the issue of community the author, points out there are conditions and structures that allow for members of the community to bump into each other. What was missing was whether the subject she was following, another mom, actually experienced what the planners were trying to create. The kids seem to get the most out of it but what about the adults?
Living in Shaw I get sometimes the benifits and the hassles of urban living. My Laurel cousin remarked how everything around here was so close. I like being able to hop on my bike an be downtown in no time. On my bike I can shop both Giant and Whole Foods, pick up drycleaning (I have baskets), and maybe pick up some Thai. I am two stops away from the movies and a short bus ride away from several of Washington’s highly rated restaurants. I also have high crime and drug dealers on the corner.
I’ve also got diversity where I get to know people different than myself on a down to earth level. Also I was a little disturbed by the mother’s idea of how to introduce diversity in her kids lives, a shelter. I wounder will they see things in extremes. We’ve got diversity out the ying yang on my block, not just economic and racial, but there are a variety of ages, nationalities, lines of work (not everyone has an office job) and familial structures. I wonder if diversity can be found in finding a girl scout troop or soccer team or camp or after school activity where the kids could interact with different kids as equals, so that ‘other’ does not always equal disadvantaged. But I’m not a parent, so I might be asking too much.

I was over at DCist looking at their manual labor mayor post and noticed up top a Google Ad for Adrian Fenty’s mayoral campaign. Fenty has not only taken up many a lawnspace, because those green signs are popping up like mushrooms in parts of Ward 5, but he’s taken up ad space. I’ve pondered Google ads. But given that I wouldn’t be able to choose which individual ads show up on my site, I’ve been wary about adding ads. I don’t know if I would want a Fenty or Orange or Johns ad popping up on my site.

Discovered slugs like tomatoes. One of the nasty things got to some low hanging tomatoes and I gather the tomato had split, like most of my tomatoes are prone to do, and the slug accessed it through the tear. So I tore off the tomato flung the offending slug in the street and waited for some passing car to squish it. Unlike split tomatoes where the ants have gotten to it, there was no saving this slug damaged one. Ants stick to the surface, the slug got into the juicy seedy core. I had to dump it into the compost bin.
I had tremendously good luck this Spring with growing salad greens in a large pot. I figured as Summer should be coming to a close I could start on some more salad for fall harvest. I planted some corn salad, arugula, and butter or Bibb salad, along with some cilantro and bunching onions. The salad greens are gone. %#@%! Inchworms. Nothing left of the salad leaves, nothing. The arugula stood up a bit better considering it does have a peppery bite, but after they ate up the softer tasting salads they attacked the arugula. They used the onions to move from one set of salad greens to another. The cilantro is just coming out so they hadn’t made much of a meal of them. So last night, I spent a good amount of time picking off the blasted worms by hand and crushing them with my loafers.

Basil giveaway
By the by, anyone in the hood in walking distance from the house needs basil, I got tons. I really should make a mint pesto (just add a bunch of mint leaves to your normal pesto recipie) but I haven’t had the time. So if your house is on one of the maps on the right hand side of this post, email me and I’ll send some basil your way.