gentrification

In addition to the new homebuyer credits, the District’s Department of Housing andCommunity Development administers a range of programs to dispose of D.C.-owned homes in needof rehabilitation and vacant land. These too can have substantial impacts on the nature ofdevelopment in neighborhoods. A large number of the District-owned vacant homes are locatedColumbia Heights and Shaw.Another important public policy issue that may require a future intervention is the impendingexpiration of project-based Section 8 housing subsidies, which subsidize privately owned affordablehousing units in the city. There are large concentrations of these developments in the Shaw andColumbia Heights neighborhoods. Few owners of such subsidized properties in the city have so faropted out of their contracts, but the prospects of a more robust rental market could lead theseowners to opt out, putting the long-term affordability of these units in jeopardy.The opening of the new Metro station in Columbia Heights has stimulated intensecompetition from private firms to develop several large tracts around the Metro station. The cityrecently approved a development plan for that area which will be anchored by a new grocery store,movie theaters and other retail ventures in this location. Similarly, the city is building a newconvention center in the Shaw neighborhood, which appears to be creating substantial additionaldemand for development of hotels and other secondary retail operations near this site.Earlier city investment decisions also were intended to catalyze economic activity. Forexample, the city opened a large municipal office building in the early 1980s in the Shaw/ColumbiaHeights neighborhood. This investment has anchored a steady growth of commercial activity in thisarea, which has accelerated substantially in the last several years.a. A Closer Look at Columbia HeightsGentrification pressures are emerging in Columbia Heights, a neighborhood that is boundedby 16th Street on the west, 9 th Street on the east, Spring Road to the north and U Street to thesouth. Columbia Heights was a thriving mixed-income, mixed- race community during the ‘50s and‘60s, but was particularly hard hit by the riots in the late 1960s. In the wake of the flight of white andblack middle class families, Columbia Heights was left with hundreds of abandoned properties, manyof which fell into substantial disrepair. The rise of crack cocaine hit the neighborhood hard,increasing crime and the presence of several notorious drug markets. A modest number of middleincomefamilies began to move back into the neighborhood in the 1980s.Columbia Heights is home to one-third of all the subsidized housing in the city, including alarge portfolio of scattered-site public housing. With more than 2,300 units of subsidized housing,the Columbia Heights neighborhood could be particularly vulnerable to the substantial loss ofaffordable housing opportunities if owners of those properties begin opting out of federal subsidyprograms as their contracts expire. 9494 HUD data, provided to Leonard by MDRC for Neighborhood Jobs Initiative.57