Parents and community members said some of their opposition grows out of suspicion of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Washington organization. Last year it took over Clubhouse 10 and five other District facilities run by the Metropolitan Police Boys and Girls Clubs. The takeover by the group, an affiliate of a national organization, allowed the clubs a respite from a life-threatening funding shortage. But the regional group now has its own cash shortages, and this year it canceled the summer camp usually run by the police organization.
At the same time, parents at Clubhouse 10 said, the Greater Washington group has stripped power from the parents association and made other unpopular changes. Some parents said computers donated to the club have been reserved for staff use. Denise Credle, the volunteer who discovered the documents about the condo proposal, said she has been barred from the club. She accused its director, Bernardo Jiminez, of closing the club to members last week so nonmembers could play soccer.
Bernardo Jiminez, director of the Columbia Heights Boys & Girls Club, watches Stacy Bautista, 9, left, Kiara Moore, 6, and Leroy Bautista, 6, play foosball.
(Robert A. Reeder -- The Washington Post)
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Club officials said the new computer lab is for children and should open within days. Jiminez said the club was closed for staff training, as were others across the city.
He said some African American parents at the club "feel uncomfortable because my ethnicity happens to be Hispanic" and because he has launched soccer programs since his arrival nine months ago to draw Latino youths to the facility.
But most of the fear seems to stem from changes outside the club's walls, where housing prices are soaring, retailers are flocking and upper-income professionals are increasingly willing to spend lots of money for granite countertops and great downtown views.
"The parents are convinced that this is going to be a phasing-out process," said Zein El-Amine, an activist who lives nearby and brings his 7-year-old to the club. "Building a luxury apartment for a community that's already under siege from gentrification is going to be the clincher."
Credle, who grew up in the neighborhood and has stayed involved with the club even though she and her husband, a D.C. police detective, live in suburban Maryland, said the new residences will fuel skyrocketing prices, raise property taxes for low-income homeowners and increase the speed at which renters are priced out.
" 'It's not for our kids.' That's what people are saying," Credle said. She said people are telling her, " 'Whose kids are going to be there? Because we're not going to be able to afford what you're putting there.' "
