District Redevelopment Hurts Poor, Voters Say

As construction cranes began rising downtown six years ago, a majority of Washingtonians shared Mayor Anthony A. Williams's vision that economic revitalization would help the city's poorest residents by creating jobs and repairing blighted neighborhoods.

That vision has undergone a marked reversal now that offices and condominiums have opened, and developers have transformed neighborhoods across the city, according to a Washington Post poll.

Sixty-one percent of registered voters surveyed said redevelopment is "mainly bad" for the poor, and 35 percent said redevelopment is "mainly good," the poll showed. In 2000, however, 64 percent said redevelopment is largely beneficial to the poor and 28 percent said it's harmful.

Clarence Coleman, 77, a retired physician in Southeast, said he had expected the development sweeping the District to "provide employment and economic opportunity" for the poor. But Coleman, among those surveyed in this month's Post poll, said he thinks the beneficiaries are developers and the middle and upper classes.

"It hasn't benefited the poor," Coleman said. He cited the demolition of housing projects, such as East Capitol Dwellings, as an example of the District depleting the supply of low-cost housing. "I'm not saying housing projects are good, but I don't think building what they have has improved the lot of poor people," he said. "It may have benefited some, but not many."

Deputy Mayor Stanley Jackson, Williams's chief adviser for planning and economic development, said he is disappointed that more residents don't see how development has helped the poor. The administration, he said, must better communicate the benefits "so we can stop looking at it like it's for someone else."

In the telephone poll of 1,350 randomly sampled D.C. adults conducted July 13-18, 1,030 registered voters named crime and public education as among their top concerns. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points for questions asked of all voters and of 4.5 percentage points for those who are considered most likely to vote in the Democratic primary.

Sixteen percent of surveyed voters said affordable housing was a significant priority, and many said that although they welcomed redevelopment, they worried that real estate prices and rising property taxes are onerous for the poor.

Two years ago, voters expressed disappointment in the way D.C. government serves poor communities east of the Anacostia River when they unseated three incumbent D.C. Council members -- Kevin Chavous, Harold Brazil and Sandy Allen.

Angie Rodgers, a policy analyst for the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, said the public was perhaps more supportive of redevelopment in 2000, because the city was trying to attract developers. "It may be the kind of situation where you're in a drought and you need water, so water is good," she said. "But if you're in a flood, water is bad."

Even as the cost of living in the District has risen, Rodgers said there isn't enough available data to know whether redevelopment has forced large numbers of poor residents from the city.

The tax revenue generated by the economic boom, she said, does not appear to have bolstered city services for the poor. A 2004 Fiscal Policy Institute study showed that city spending on everything from social services to parks and recreation had declined from the early 1990s. More District funds are being spent on affordable housing, Rodgers said, but it is unclear whether "that touches the need in this city."