gentrification

overwhelmingly renters and least familiar with standard real estate protections, these minorityfamilies seem most vulnerable to rising rents. Many non-profit housing providers andrepresentatives of social service agencies indicated that Hispanic families were already moving outof Columbia Heights, to abutting neighborhoods to the north and east, and to areas of Latinoconcentrations in Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in Maryland. There are no goodquantifiable estimates of the scale of this displacement to date.b. Gentrification in Other Washington, D.C. NeighborhoodsWashington D.C. has a substantial history of gentrification in many of its neighborhoods. Inthe late 1950s, a government-sponsored urban renewal effort in Southwest Washington cleared thelow-income slums in that neighborhood and replaced them with high-rise apartments and up-scaletownhomes. The Georgetown neighborhood was also substantially gentrified in the 1960s (and thecurrent residents are almost exclusively white and relatively wealthy). Other neighborhoods haveexperienced some gentrification, yet retain some economic diversity.• On Capitol Hill, upper-income whites have gradually spread outward from the Capitol into theneighborhood that for many years housed lower income African American and white families,creating a gradually expanding boundary of gentrification. Yet, the presence of a significantnumber of public housing units creates a physical barrier that prevents a wholesalegentrification from occurring there.• The Adams Morgan neighborhood has undergone a significant influx of higher-incomehouseholds beginning in the late 1970s and coincident with the renovation of the commercialareas along 18 th Street and Columbia Road. But a substantial core of lower-income AfricanAmericans and a large concentration of Hispanics have continued to live in theneighborhoods east of 18 th Street and south of Columbia Road. The continued presence oflower-income minority households in this neighborhood has been assured because of theconcentration of subsidized apartment buildings in the community. The permanentlyaffordable housing stock has been critical to the preservation of a mix of incomes andethnicities in this community. In addition, the commercial strip along Columbia Roadbetween 16 th and 18 th Streets continues to feature small bodegas and other merchants thatcater to a largely Hispanic market. 97• In Mount Pleasant, gentrification pressures are also on the rise. Single-family home prices inMt. Pleasant have escalated rapidly in the last year. Large apartment buildings along 16 thStreet continue to provide reasonably affordable rental housing for many Hispanics. Someaffordable housing advocates expressed concern that these buildings could be prime targetsfor condominium conversions. Tensions also mount over the future character of the majorcommercial strip in Mount Pleasant, with recent gentrifiers and the Hispanic residents atodds over the nature of the commercial operations that should be located there.97 Much of this housing was acquired and developed by Jubilee Housing Corporation.59