In the late '80s, at the height of the crack craze, there was an alley in the Montana Terrace housing project in Northeast where intruders who distracted drug dealers from their work were routinely shot or stabbed.
That Montana Terrace is gone. The skanky ex-military barracks have been gutted and rehabbed and now feature bay windows, pitched roofs, new yards.
That revival emboldened a developer to build 37 single-family houses across the street. People paid $220,000 to live across from an ex-war zone. Now, two years later, those houses sell in the mid-$300s.
Gentrification involves displacement and pain. But the D.C. Housing Authority has managed to protect many of the 10 percent of city residents who rely on public housing.
"The bottom line is deconcentration of low-income folks," says Michael Kelly, executive director of the Housing Authority. "We were the drag on the neighborhood, and we became the catalyst for revitalization.
"The market is going to force change anyway, and the feds are getting out of the housing business big-time. Our job is to take advantage of the development pressure to get new housing for low-income folks."
The job is not done. Some projects, such as Barry Farm in Southeast, remain decrepit, dreary and dangerous.
But in many areas, the District has found a way to embrace private developers who see gold in the land under low-income housing projects.
If developers buy into the Housing Authority's ideal -- one-third market rate units, one-third affordable units (for families on police- and teacher-level salaries), and one-third low-income housing -- the city will raze failed projects and start fresh. The result is at least one-for-one replacement of existing units for the poor, along with improved amenities (air conditioning, larger rooms), a more stable community and the promise of new retail and schools.
Any redevelopment raises the specter of the 1960s when the street protesters' cry was "Urban renewal is Negro removal." But at Henson Ridge, a pretty, 600-unit development taking shape along Alabama Avenue SE where the truly awful Stanton and Frederick Douglass dwellings once stood, 73 percent of former residents are coming back to spanking new houses. That's six times the national average rate of return.
Enough boosterism for one day. Two harsh realities limit the city's ability to create a thriving community of mixed incomes. First, while the city itself can build housing for various income levels, the private sector is primarily interested in building housing at market rates. Even those developers who have played a public-spirited role in Washington's revival are resisting a new effort to require builders to include affordable units in their developments.
And as refreshing as it is to see new life in some of the city's poorest sections, the turnaround will prove illusory if the city doesn't dramatically improve its schools.
Henson Ridge's success depends on attracting families, and that's why the project always included a new library, community center and school. But the D.C. school system failed to replace Turner Elementary.
School board member William Lockridge says it was a money problem and the new school will rise by 2006. Housing officials aren't so sure.
Near the Southeast Federal Center, the authority plans to replace 700 units of abysmal public housing with a community that includes 700 market rate units and 900 of public housing. Private developers will pay much of the costs, including those for a new school.
Again, the school system has proven incapable of making even sweet deals. Lockridge says it's not incompetence: "It's in the pipeline," he says. "These projects take a long time."
The city is moving to replace the violence-plagued Sursum Corda project near North Capitol Street, but the school system seems unable to revive adjacent Walker-Jones Elementary, where only 27 percent of the students read at grade level.
The housing end of Mayor Tony Williams's goal of building homes for 100,000 new residents seems realistic. But the city cannot build a thriving middle class without good schools.
It's tempting to see each revolution of the turnstile in the superintendent of schools' office as comical. But it is downright tragic that this city's forward motion is limited by schools that should fill us all with shame.
