Kennedy St documentary

Here is a link to Ingrid Drake and Desmond Leary's audio documentary about Kennedy Street, which aired recently on WPFW radio:

http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/129274/index.php

You can listen or download the MP3 file.

Comments

[Joseph Martin]

Routinely during the years Marion Barry was mayor, the DC government had to return to the federal treasury tens of millions of dollars in federal aid programs for low-income housing, for drug treatment programs and other federal programs that would have benefited the District's poor, low-income and in other ways vulnerable residents.

The reason DC had to turn back the money was because of mismanagement and because the District government then did not have enough competetent administrators to process the funds according to federal standards and procedures.

The formula for some federal dollars is if a municipality fails to spend the money within a given time frame, it suggests that municipality doesn't need those funds and the money goes back unused to the federal treasury. This happened over and over and over again during the Barry years.

Unfortunately, the legacy lives on.

From last Thursday's WASHINGTON POST:

Headline: "Federal Funding for Mall in SE Falters Mismanagement Of Past Grants Cited"

By Debbi Wilgoren
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 15, 2005; Page B03

"The U.S. government has told the District that it cannot use $47 million in federal funds to buy land for an upscale shopping center east of the Anacostia River, citing sanctions levied against the city eight years ago for repeatedly mismanaged federal development grants."

"City officials have applied to the Department of Housing and Urban Development to lift the sanctions, and they have not given up on plans to use federal money to buy 18 acres to redevelop the Skyland Shopping Center in Southeast Washington."

I can understand objections to federal dollars being used for that specific project, but that's not my point here. It is the galling thought that we're still paying the price for the abuses of past mayoral administrations.

So tens of millions of dollars that could have helped DC's most vulnerable never got used.

Incompetent city officials were to blame. Those failures cannot be blamed on gentrification.

Witness the DC Public Schools. If you've read the DC public schools' test scores published in recent editions of the Post's District weekly and see how appallingly ill-prepared students are to meet the demands of today's job market, you realize tragically that children all over this city are paying the price for the political shenanigans of the city's political leadership.

In one recent economic boom year in DC, when more jobs were created than ever before, unemployment for District residents went up.

Keep these things in mind and ask tough questions to candidates in the coming election year. Take a sharp, critical look at their track records. Hold their feet to the fire.

Bumper-sticker solutions and perspectives can satisfy an immediate emotional need. I liken it to eating a hot fudge sundae when I'm hungry for substantive, healthy food.

In the end, nothing serves the District better than having competent, responsive and accountable public servants and elected officials.

Joseph Martin
ANC 4C09 Commissioner
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anc4c09

[Kevin]

Has anyone met this Ingrid "George Wallace" Drake character? My, how she does pine for the days when "like kept with like". Someone might want to let her know that gentrification is an issue of economics, not race. With real estate inflation at historical levels, people with middle incomes, those of "European decent" and not, have been seeking out affordable housing in neighborhoods they might not have considered when housing was more moderately priced. This, in turn, drives up prices in the once affordable neighborhoods, forcing some less affluent residents of the neighborhood to move.

This was a much talked about issue when I went home this summer to visit my family in Maine. In fact, on my last day of vacation, my mother and I went to a tag sale at the Episcopal Church on Peaks Islands. The purpose of the sale was to raise money to assist less affluent island residents with paying their property taxes. Buyers from southern New England (Massholes we call them) have so driven up real estate prices and thus property taxes, that many families who have lived on the island for generations, can not longer afford to stay. In the 2000 Census, Maine had the highest percentage of people of "European decent" of all the states in the US. Race, I think it's safe to say, is not a factor here.

How can we address expect to address a difficult issue like affordable housing if we don't acknowledge the root of the problem? Granted, race is and always been a great tool from blame. It sure makes identifying your enemies easy. But if the cause of the problem is not there, the solution to the problem is not there either.

Ms. Drake may appear to want to draw attention to the issue of affordable housing in DC. I suspect, though, she may be more interested in drawing attention to herself.