In early October, the Washington City Paper published an article entitled, “Developer Pitches a Private Version of New Communities in Brentwood,” about a set of urban renewal plans targeted at the Brentwood Shopping Center and Brookland Manor housing complex in Washington D.C.’s Northeast quadrant. The article makes a comparison between the strip mall’s exterior, described as “decrepit” and “without many signs of life,” and 14th Street NE behind it, where, “close to 30 people, mostly men, mostly young, gather in clusters around dominoes or open liquor containers or nothing in particular.” While the author captures some of what one might observe in the neighborhood with a cursory glance, a great deal more is happening there than initially meets the eye. Each week, long-time Brentwood residents join people from throughout the District in the basement offices of HIPS, an organization that provides harm reduction services and advocates for the rights of individuals and communities impacted by drug use and sexual exchange. As a GHC Fellow serving at HIPS this year, it has been my distinct honor to work with and learn from community members in our Brentwood Shopping Center office space.
Reading about proposed plans to tear down the shopping center and the Brookland Manor housing complex—much of which is subsidized by the U.S. federal housing Section 8 program—in favor of mixed-income housing, retail stores, and redesigned green spaces has left me with a knot in my stomach and a plethora of questions. Where will current residents go while these changes are taking place? Will HIPS’ current Brentwood-area clients, the majority of whom are lower-income people of color, be able to continue accessing our services when the organization moves to another section of Northeast? Is there room for community agencies like HIPS within this re-imagined Brentwood community, or will they be washed away by an endless sea of condos?
These questions about HIPS’ enduring relationship to the Brentwood community have led me to reflect a great deal on the link between urban development and displacement here in Washington, D.C. To fully unpack this issue, I find it extremely useful to consider the concept of gentrification. In their 2001 report “Dealing with Neighborhood Change: A Primer on Gentrification and Policy Choices,” the Brookings Institution Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy and PolicyLink defined gentrification as, “the process by which higher income households displace lower income residents of a neighborhood, changing the essential character and flavor of that neighborhood.” The report goes on to note that more often than not gentrification involves white households replacing households of color in neighborhoods that white people previously abandoned during periods of “white flight” in the 1950s and 1960s. I like this definition in particular because it doesn’t just focus on rising property values or physical neighborhood upgrades. Rather, it links those processes to involuntary displacement and potentially drastic changes in neighborhood dynamics that disproportionately affect people of color.
I’m not inherently against renewal, development, revitalization, or whatever you want to call it per se. But I have a real problem when projects are pushed forward and policies are put in place that reinforce historically entrenched racial and class inequalities. Although revitalization efforts endeavor to introduce more housing options, modes of transportation, grocery stores, etc. to lower-income neighborhoods, evidence suggests that it is easier for newer inhabitants to access those resources than original residents. This can lead to a myriad of negative consequences, including poorer health outcomes. Building upon the foundation provided by “Dealing with Neighborhood Change,” the Centers for Disease Control’s Built Environment and Health Initiative published a brief overview of the health effects of gentrification that states that displacement has a larger impact on women, children, the elderly, lower-income individuals, and people of color. It can also lead to a shorter life expectancy, higher cancer rates, and higher incidences of asthma and diabetes in those populations. Here, I believe that the questions I posed at the beginning of this post become especially relevant, and I want to bring this macro-level discussion back down to what I’ve observed while working at HIPS not only in Brentwood but throughout all four of Washington’s quadrants.
Many of the neighborhoods that HIPS serves have undergone a number of changes since the organization first started in 1993. As increasing numbers of higher-income white people opt to live within the District, we’ve seen increasing tension between newer residents and original inhabitants regarding community health and safety. During one of my first outings on the HIPS van for overnight outreach, one of my coworkers described this as the “Not In My Backyard” phenomenon. NIMBY gets evoked all the time in D.C. in response to many types of activities, but in this context I argue that it often reproduces negative stereotypes about people who use drugs and/or engage in sex work. Some people assert that HIPS encourages injection drug use and sexual exchange by distributing safer injection equipment and safer sex supplies in their neighborhoods. Others express interest in increased police presence to curb violence associated with drug use and sex work, without realizing that these efforts frequently enact structural violence and increase social isolation by separating people from their families and support networks and placing them instead in the criminal justice system. These responses create an Us vs. Them dichotomy where people who use drugs and/or engage in sex work become impediments to fully realizing the vision of community NIMBYs had in mind when moving to their new neighborhood, rather than viewing them as equal and active participants in this process. I’d like to challenge this idea by arguing that NIMBY initiatives hamper neighborhood health, safety, and happiness by placing the needs and desires of newer residents over those of more vulnerable community members who experience the bulk of gentrification’s impact. Communities cannot achieve optimal levels of health without ensuring that everyone has access to resources that recognize individual agency in health decision-making as well as safe, comfortable living spaces to carry out the activities that stem from those choices.
As a community dedicated to social justice and health equity across the globe, I believe that it is extremely important for GHC Fellows, alumni, and supporters to talk more about gentrification and to consider how many of us living in the United States most likely participate in it. I recognize that this concept can seem confusing and overwhelming for folks who haven’t heard about it or discussed it before. It can be hard for people to connect their decision to move to an “up-and-coming” neighborhood to the physical, social, and emotional displacement of lower-income people of color. But that’s what happens every day in neighborhoods throughout the U.S., including Columbia Heights, where two of the three GHC houses are located this year. “Dealing with Neighborhood Change” dedicates an entire section of its Washington, D.C. case study to Columbia Heights, stating that the neighborhood’s African American and Latino immigrant populations are particularly vulnerable to rising rents, and that was all the way back in 2001. What’s happened since then? A 2012 study by the Thomas Ford Institute demonstrated that the white share of the population in Columbia Heights went from 22 in 2000 to 47 in 2010, even though there was only 4% population growth overall in the neighborhood during that period. I bring up this example to illustrate how gentrification is not something that happens to other people in other communities far removed from our own everyday lived experiences as GHC Fellows. I feel extremely lucky to live in a big, beautiful home in Columbia Heights, but I recognize that the structure of my fellowship dictates the length of time I spend here, while many people around me are making extremely difficult choices about staying or leaving. How much will change over the course of this year?
I don’t have answers for all the questions I’ve raised in this post, but I’d like to turn to the words of one long-time Columbia Heights resident for insight into where we can at least start. Salvadoran-American poet Quique Aviles recorded his musings while strolling through his neighborhood in a piece for NPR’s Latino USA, and he asks his audience, “if you move here, and if you mean well, what you got? You know, what resources are you bringing in? How can we use your connections, your networks, your wealth, your position? How do we bring that to create a new community?” The Global Health Corps model prioritizes intellectual exploration and interior formation as much as it prioritizes professional development, which puts GHC Fellows in a unique position to grapple with the consequences of gentrification not only in our placement sites but also in our homes and communities. I look forward to future conversations on gentrification with my HIPS coworkers as well as with the rest of my GHC cohort so that we may all work to sustain happy and healthy communities in Brentwood, Columbia Heights, and beyond.