Month: June 2004

GOVERNMENT OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

ADVISORY NEIGHBORHOOD COMMISSION 5C

POST OFFICE BOX 77761

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20013

TELEPHONE: (202) 832-1965/1966

www.anc5c.org

PUBLIC MEETING NOTICES

Monthly Meeting

Invited guests include representatives from the following

organizations:

Washington Hospital Center

Catholic University of America

United States Postal Service

Where: Metropolitan Wesley

AME Zion Church

1712 North Capitol Street, N.W.

When: Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Time: 7:00 P.M. until 9:00 P.M.

__________________

Monthly Forum

Where: Saint Paul’s College

3015 4th Street, N.E.

When: Tuesday, July 6, 2004

Time: 7:00 P.M. until 9:00 P.M.

Brief conversation with the roommate. We were talking about gentrification and she did feel bad about people who couldn’t afford to live in the city. As an example of the group that couldn’t afford housing she mentioned the starving artists. I jumped on her, forget the starving artists, what about the single mom with 3 kids?

I’m of the p.o.v. that the starving artists, young workers and students from middle class backgrounds who speak out about how bad gentrification is and against those of us buying houses and upping the market, are just as much to blame. The single mother of three, or the working class family they don’t add to the tide of gentrification, until they sell and get the hell outta Dodge (ie move to PG County). It’s the near cluelessness of what role the starving artist/ punk kids/ whatevers play in the gentrification. They are canaries in the mine.

Then there is the other side. Those of us who bought and feel kinda bad about the gentrification but that feeling kinda goes away when we think about the equity in the house. Or it instantly goes away when some ‘bama neighbors start shooting off bottle rockets near midnight or honking the horn at 3AM or trashing the street then it’s evict ’em all, & let G-d sort ’em out.

Chatted with my neighbor. He informed me that the garden style apartments between P & Q Sts along 7th Street NW. It’s where Bettye, the friendly Washington Post Express person who passes out the paper at the R St side of the Shaw metro, lives. She and her neighbors are going to lose their home. Why? Well the property is privately owned and the owner is not renewing the Section 8 contract. His own feelings are mixed, as are mine. We like Bettye. The apartments are fine and don’t seem to be trouble and the property seems clean. However we know that it would be a fruitless battle to get a private owner to NOT tear down the apartments to build a luxury high-rise/multistory and make millions of dollars. Of course same neighbor waved his hand over the Asbury Dwellings at 7th and Rhode Island and said, “They should do something with this..” I replied, “Its housing for old people.” Don’t mess with the old people.

We want the neighborhood to get better. We know that the “better” will be borne on the backs of the poor. We just hope that many will be able to survive the storm.

Good links

Gentrification & Guilt

How to stave off gentrification guilt (warning strong language!)

Gentrification: Artists and Yuppies Working Together

Slingshot-Gentrification

Race and Community (touchy-feely but in the end good)

I was annoyed once, sometime ago, when the former owner of my house, upon seeing my improvements regretted selling the house. Well MoFo you had the house for a good long while and did jack shyte before you decided to sell. Hate to break it to you but all these improvements cost money, money you weren’t willing to shell out ’cause you didn’t live here and it was a Section 8 rental.

There are a few cheap ass landlords on my block. There are the people who own the house across from me where the cabinets fell off the wall because they hired crackheads to do the work. Then there is the issue of DM’s house where I had to deal with the winter of busting pipes ’cause I was downhill from her house, and guess where water flows? I think the pipes busted 3x that Winter. Worst yet is the house owned by a lawyer who would not replace a carpet infested with dust mites. The result was the renter’s kid breaking out and having to go to the hospital often and terrible scarring.

Around the cheap ass landlords’ rentals are homeowners and market renters. People improving the houses, keeping up appearences with the yards, and what not. So once in a while we hear the odd pie in the sky plans of the ghetto landlords upon seeing that their crap property is in the middle of a blockwide boom. I say ‘pie in the sky’ because it is just talk because they are to friggin cheap to do what ever they plan right. They’ll hire crackheads and make it look sad. And for what? They are still addicted to Section 8 money and you know they are not going to shell out money for Section 8 renters. And since market rate renters have choices, those renters would chose to move once the ghetto landlords start being ghetto.

In and out in about an hour. Take the bus as they don’t validate the parking there but the time you save over the main DMV office is amazing. I was told to go there by a few folks from the monthly gawd awfully boring community meeting. Oh and by the way, the Georgetown office is small. Tiny.

Afterwards I pondered serval things: Shopping…. with what money? Going back to work, umm 1-2 hours to get from Georgetown to BFE, MD for 3 hours of work….and that’s before any lunch. Nope. Lunch! Eating is a good idea considering the only thing in yur tummy is a small bowl of branny bran bran. So after lunch it is 12:35 Still work 3 hours ’cause after a certain time there is no one around and there is no point.

Well the city is going to be a mess downtown with the Ronald comin’ to town. Not just downtown but the neighborhoods ajoining between the Capitol and the National Cathedral will be closed off and made terribly inconvienent to the residents. Which made me think. They wouldn’t dare come through my part of Shaw. One possible route would be from the Capitol up NJ to FL up Connecticut and over to Wisconsin via R or some other street. But really you don’t want great dignitaries to have to go through the hood where there are drug dealers, with guns! So when trying to figure out how to get back to VA, go through the hood, skip the whole hubbabalu downtown and take 395.

Neighbors,

I take this opportunity to remind you of tonight’s meeting of the Bates

Area

Civic Association, Inc. Specifically, the meeting will be held at

Mount

SInai Baptist Church, 3rd and Q Streets, N.W., between the hours of

7:00

p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Art Slater, the new Chairperson-elect of the Fifth

District Police Citizen’s Advisory Council is scheduled to make some

comments about his prelimary plans to move that group on matters of

public

safety. In addition, Alice Harper, the Community Relations Specialist

from

the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency who is assiged to

cover

the Fifth Dstrict, plans to make some comments about the history of her

agency’s work with the MPD and the Fifth District community. Inasmuch

as

the summer is rapidly approaching, Lionel Taylor, Ward Five Coordinator

from

the DC Department of Parks and Recreation, wants to let you know about

some

of the activities that are happening in Ward Five for residents of all

ages.

And, consistent with our intention to have each of the candidates for

an

At-Large City Council seat appear before the Association in advance of

the

November 2004 election, Candidate Kwame Brown has been invited to

attend

this month. (It should be known that Mr. Brown had multiple campaign

events

on his schedule for the date of our meeting when the invitation was

initially extended to him. So, he was invited with the understanding

that

we would invite him again next month, if it turns out that delays from

his

pre-existing commitments, essentially, prevents him from coming to our

meeting this month.)

In addition to the above, we have a Flower Power update and other

announcements of importance. So, we hope to see you tonight!

Best,

JB

No fun.
I think I spotted the homeless guy who found it. I’m beating myself up for not asking him if he found it. I don’t care about the money ($30-$50), it’s the cards. I’ve been on the phone cancelling all the cards I could. Tomorrow I have to call for replacements of the healthcare card. Good thing I do keep the cards of other accounts out of my wallet so I’m not totally screwed. There was a $8.00 metro card in there too.
I guess I’ll have to take a day to replace my driver’s license which will be no fun as I still had the old address on 12th St on it. I didn’t own a car and besides the odd Flexcar trips did not drive. But the license is a de facto ID card. I’ll just run around with my expired passport until it is replaced.
I used to have this problem a lot in college, loosing my wallet. But the worse was loss of the driver’s license and my one ATM card. Now DL and 3 credit/check cards, health insurance, business cards, receipts (some needed for refunds), a check I needed to deposit (stop payment fee almost as much as check) in other account. The lesson learned from my college days was not to have anything of major personal value in your wallet. So I don’t have anything with my SS#, or pictures of loved ones, or anything of that nature. Figured it be a good thing for this neighborhood considering some of the crime. But the neighborhood isn’t that bad, just me.

This loss because I was too busy racing to the metro station to go to church. Teaches me to stick with the bus. Please Lord give me peace.

Friday after work I met up with John (Logan Circle Guy) who is leaving this lovely area we call home for sunny Houston in a few days. It is really nice to meet up with folk you know from the online world in the real world. Same goes with BL and Nathan over in Eckington.

It was also good to compare notes on tiny little townhome living. His place 12 feet wide, mine 14 feet. Apparently houses like ours were built with very little between each unit making for difficult sleeping when one has party hardy neighbors.

Well with the house sold, job relocated to TX, and movers awaiting to decend on his home to carry off his earthly belongings I wish John the best. Vote wisely, you’re getting a Congress member and a Senator.

Two businesses along R St have closed their doors. I don’t know if anyone really close is sad.

First was Jorge’s Body Shop. There used to be cars and trucks littering the corner and sometimes they’d spill out on to the parking spaces on the street. I know the shop had some cars up for sale. So I am guessing one or two things happened that spelled the demise of the shop. First the city cracked down on dealers and temp auto tags. As I understand it, a lot of businessmen made good money off of selling temp tags but not cars. Secondly, the property values in the area have been getting high and I don’t know if business was keeping up with that.

Second place was Majestic (?) Cleaners on the same block. Now first off I’ll tell you what was wrong with that cleaners and why I would never use them, no posted hours. I walked by many a time and never once saw their hours of business. Also they were just opening as I was heading to work and were closed when I came back from work and I didn’t see them open on Saturday. Obviously they weren’t out for the 9-5 working person’s business. One of my neighbors made the mistake of doing business with them, and needed his clothes back for a special event. Well they were closed when he went there and had no idea when they’d open again. Another problem was that there was little from the outside that gave you the impression they were for the general public. In addition to the lack of useful business hours there was no visible register or anything that hinted at business other than for commercial bodies.

You could say both businesses have been pushed out due to gentrification. Well you could say George Bush is a giant Cicada. You could say a lot of things really. But I hope those businesses are replaced by places that service the community and post business hours.