February
2003
Housing
Authority Disregards Input Required by the HOPE VI Process
"If
you ask questions or speak during the meeting, you won't get your
money."
DC
Housing Authority continually blocks resident efforts to make their
voices heard within the HOPE VI process. There is a pattern of blatant
manipulation and tactics that are being used in an attempt to silence
us.
MYTH:
Public meetings are held to “discuss resident concerns.”
FACT: The community task force meetings (one in June, one in September)
have been only about what the new buildings will look like. The meetings
completely disregard the residents’ main concerns of: credit
checks as a condition for re-entry, relocation, the number of units
that will be replaced and guarantees for current residents to return.
MYTH:
Public meetings aim to “answer questions about the HOPE VI process.”
FACT: Members are effectively bribed not to speak. At the community
task force meetings those who are most interested in participating
in such forums were recruited early in the process and paid to “help”
with the event. In exchange for $20 the most active residents were
told, “If you ask any questions or speak during the meeting
you won’t get your money."
MYTH:
Public meetings actively “integrate resident needs and opinions
into the design and function of the new community.”
FACT: Friends and Residents has been circulating a petition saying
no to credit checks as a condition for re-entry. And hundreds of residents
have already signed on. During a meeting, DCHA officials merely referred
to the petition as a call for residents to not pay rent, and ignored
the real issue of credit checks. They didn't’t listen or respond
to our concerns – they instead just spread misinformation that
intimidated community members from speaking and thinking critically
about our situation. There was no chance to respond to this misinformation.
And when someone finally got up the nerve to speak to this point,
the microphone was taken from him in mid-sentence.
MYTH:
Through the process of public meetings “residents and community
leaders had direct substantive input into every aspect of the plan.”
FACT: This is not a democratic process: Residents were kicked out
of our own community meeting for speaking their opinion. In fact,
when DCHA didn't’t agree with what residents said, DCHA had
the police kick them out of our own community meeting. Here is what
happened. Weeks before the last September community task force meeting
DCHA granted Friends and Residents the right to be on the agenda.
Minutes before the meeting, DCHA retracted and refused. Then Friends
and Residents asked for 10 minutes of the 3 hour meeting to bring
up pressing resident concerns. Event though at first DCHA said fine,
when a resident got up to speak, she was interrupted and cut off.
She was threatened and then the police attempted to stop her from
speaking. Along with her, 80 residents got up and walked out of the
meeting after it was clear no resident was being listened to.
MYTH:
Residents can be easily tricked out of giving input on the future
of our community and in the HOPE VI process.
FACT: Residents are demanding that the four hundred units of low income
housing that are demolished be replaced with an equal number, that
the only requirement for re-entry to their community should be that
you are current on your rent, and finally that during the relocation
phase of the HOPE VI process that there be made available housing
that does not include other public housing (which would mean evictions
and people on the public housing waiting list would have to wait longer)
or section 8 rental properties. To these concerns the D.C. Housing
Authority has said nothing substantive nor have changes been made
to the HOPE VI plan to address these concerns.
In summation, the Housing Authority’s approach to resident input
is to bribe, coerce, spread misinformation, and otherwise marginalize
resident participation. We demand better!
