Case Study: The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative

When a neighborhood is gentrified it will not only change the image of it, but also the services available there (Al-Kodmany 2011, 62-63). In other words, gentrification does not only have an impact on the physical aspect of the land, but also the resources that lie there. During the 90s, the Near West Side neighborhood located near Loop, an up-scale neighborhood, sought drastic changes within the area. The changes in racial demographics in the Near West Side indicated that the health risks that affected minorities dropped in the past decade (1992-2002) (Al-Kodmany 2011,

Besides being the most responsible for addressing the problem, government officials also have the most to gain from a successful policy proposal. This is why government officials are also this proposal’s target audience. If the homeless population can be reduced or the issue completely resolved to the point where homelessness is no longer an issue, government officials would benefit greatly from the publicity of such success. City officials, given their responsibility, are thus both the key player and target audience for this policy analysis and proposal.

The DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative (DCPNI) draws upon promising practices from a national body of work that suggest that dual-generation programming is an effective strategy for breaking the cycle of poverty. Specifically, two-generation strategies that suggest integrating education, employment opportunities, and peer support for parents and academic and support services for their children will produce far more promising outcomes for both the parents and their child.

Over the last couple of decades, Buffalo has found itself in a grave housing crisis. The urban population is shrinking and the population in poverty is growing, leaving houses abandoned and left to fall apart. Although many cities in the Rust Belt are facing similar problems, about 15.7% of Buffalo housing was left vacant as of 2010, which places Buffalo as ninth in the nation for vacancy rate. As the masses abandon their homes, run down neighborhoods see an increase in crime and drug use, and a rapid decrease in property value (Armstrong et al. 1-2). Many see this deterioration, however, as an opportunity to renovate impoverished neighborhoods and make them more attractive to the upper and middle class. This process, known as gentrification, should increase the overall well being of residents by making neighborhoods safer,

Washington, D.C. is rapidly changing in front of the citizen’s eyes. It is becoming a victim of “The Plan,” a theoretical conspiracy plan construed by whites to take over D.C.’s real estate, physical space, and politics. Gentrification in Washington, D.C. can essentially be defined as a shift in the community to attract and accommodate newcomers at the expense of the current inhabitants. In Washington, four neighborhoods are currently in the process of gentrification: Barry Farm, Lincoln Heights/Richardson Dwellings, Northwest One and Park Morton. These particular neighborhoods were specifically targeted by the government for their high crime rates, significant population of impoverished citizens, and inclusion of a certain economic class.

The bigger an issue, the more likely it is to be ignored because then people are able to blame the size of the issue. In 2015, a study found that over 500,000 people were homeless in the United States. At this point, major cities were beginning to declare homelessness an emergency situation, yet majorly successful solutions remained few and far between. In Kozol’s book. he writes about how common it is for the government to look the other way or to choose the option based on what will cost the government the least or what is more beneficial for the government, rather than what is best for the schools. “... the districts that face the toughest challenges are also likely to be those that have the fewest funds to meet their children’s needs” (Source G, 56). It is important to recognize that the book is written based off of Kozol’s experiences in the late twentieth century, meaning that the specifics of the situations may differ in present day but the basic themes and issues remain. In Source B, Lloyd Pendleton discusses how the Housing First system helped to decrease chronic homelessness in Utah by 91%. In Source E, Richard J. Berry, the mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico, describes how he helped create

In the communities I grew up in, there were frequent changing circumstances that actually left my family not really as part of the community. From dingy, cheap and tiny places for rent, there has been significant points brought to the attention of the reader in this book that could attribute to the failure and success of neighborhoods. In Suburban Nation, the opening pages give a lot of insight on the issues that can come from these big and fancy, new housing developments.

Charity Productions in partnership with the College of Architecture’s Texas Target Communities Program at Texas A&M University have collaborated together to develop a set of solutions in response to the pre-existing neighborhood conditions throughout Harris County in Houston, Texas. The conditions of these particular neighborhoods have created a pattern of disparities throughout Harris County to be recognized as constraints to residents in impeding their ability to become affluent members of society. Texas Target Communities and Charity Productions have taken a step further to not only provide an analysis of evidence for these disparities but to identify the assets present in these communities to formulate feasible and cost effective solutions.

I have seen many changes growing up in Prince Georges County (PG), a minority-dominated county in Maryland. The government has spent a massive amount of money to revitalize the county. This includes the $250.5 million transformation of Jack Kent Cooke Stadium (now FedEx Field) and the massive $2 billion National Harbor project in Oxon Hill, MD[i]. There are rumors the county plans to rename the crime-infested city of Landover, where I currently live, to Hyattsville, a neighboring city, predicting that this will ease the bad repetition of this area. However, these renovations and changes are only temporary solutions since they are only masking the problems that put my home county deeper in

Housing our Neighbors is an organization that includes housing advocates and homeless people who work together to fight for accessible housing for low income and homeless people. Their organization believes Baltimore can invest in a community land trust. A community land trust is when a non-profit organization owns and manages land where affordable housing is built. The organization will also ensure rent and mortgages remain affordable, and decided if certain houses should be renovated or demolished. Something interesting about the community land trust is it has been successful in other parts of the country. With this information it would be very hard not to wonder if this could work in

Homeless people in Allegheny County, PA are a vulnerable population that needs addressed. Homeless populations consist of individuals, families and veterans who struggle with obtaining the basic needs of life, that many take for granted. A shortage of affordable housing, not enough income to meet basic needs and inefficient support services all contribute to homelessness in the communities (In Nies & In McEwen, 2015, p. 433). Services, help, and resources are available in this county, but getting this vulnerable subset of the population to seek this help, are difficult.

The first subject I will compare is the housing within each neighborhood. First, in the Greenbush neighborhood, the majority of people are either college students or young adults between the ages of twenty and thirty-two. It was obvious this age group lived in these homes seeing the décor on the front porches and the cars in the driveways. The average household income ranges between seventy and eighty-five thousand dollars per year (StatisticalAtlas). Just walking down the street I noticed most of the lots are designated for either college students, expensive residential homes, or parks with green spaces. The neighborhoods average price for a normal sized home would range between three hundred and three

Homelessness has been a major problem all over the United States for decades. Going into the major cities like New York City, Chicago or even Baltimore people are able to see the struggle the homeless are going through year around. It is easy to say for the homeless to just get a job and make simple money but it is easier said than done. The reason why homelessness is becoming a major problem is not having affordable housing, sufficient income and restrictions of healthcare services. With all three of these issues we can be able to change someone’s life by helping them on the right track. Meanwhile, if ignored and not confronting the problem it will never be solved and then become worse. The solutions to Baltimore’s homelessness are for

DC’s Mayor Muriel Bowser is very committed to “ending long-term homelessness in the District of Columbia”. The mayor and her team believe that the administration’s plan for homelessness is ambitious but achievable. The plan aims at cultivating partnerships with non-profit providers, advocates, persons experiencing homelessness, business partners, and the philanthropic community to develop ways and methods to manage and resolve homelessness in the nation’s capital. Another key actor that is involved in resolving DC’s homelessness is the District of Columbia Interagency Council on Homelessness (DCICH). The DCICH is a group of cabinet level leaders, providers of homeless services, advocates, homeless and formerly homeless leaders that come together to inform and guide the District’s strategies and policies for meeting the needs of individuals and families who are homeless or at imminent risk of becoming homeless. The DCICH main mission is to “to end long-term homelessness in the District of Columbia by 2020”.

In today’s society, it may seem that gentrification can eliminate poverty and increase neighborhood opportunities. Low-income residents and property owners will be the first to be altered by gentrification. In an email to the editor at the Atlantic, Freeman, the director of the Urban Planning program at Columbia states “ Gentrification brings new amenities and services that benefit not only the newcomers but long term residents too. Full service