Long Time Coming

On May 20, Sojourners housing ministry and the neighborhood organization we helped to establish three years ago, the Southern Columbia Heights Tenants Union, participated with the New Jersey-based National Tenants Union in "National Tenant Day" here in Washington, D.C. The highlight of the day was the presentation of a large eviction notice to our nation's number-one recipient of public housing: Ronald Reagan.

We posted the eviction notice in front of the White House to announce that we, the American public, as the landlords of Reagan's public housing unit, were serving him with a "just cause" notice to quit and vacate the premises. Reagan has allowed the nation's housing stock to deteriorate and ignored the national housing crisis, activities that American tenants have determined to be criminal, and therefore grounds for eviction from a public unit.

All across the country, low- and moderate-income tenants from California to New York and Texas to Michigan used the month of May to mobilize their communities around local tenant issues and draw attention to the nationwide housing crisis. The National Tenants Union (NTU) pulled together the month's events with a press conference in Washington, D.C, introducing a resolution proclaiming the third Friday in May every year as National Tenant Day. The group was successful in meeting with representatives of the Congressional Black Caucus, and in securing Congressman Parren Mitchell of Maryland to sponsor the National Tenant Day resolution.

The Southern Columbia Heights Tenants Union (SCHTU) hosted NTU while it was in town, as well as organized local efforts aimed at drawing public attention to the housing problems the poor face in our neighborhood of Southern Columbia Heights. Disinvestment and displacement continue to be the major problems here, as many buildings deteriorate to the point of being uninhabitable.

A primary reason for the extensive disinvestment is that many owners are not interested in the business of supplying housing, but are merely holding properties as speculative investments, seeking high capital gains from resale or condominium conversion. The results are newly renovated homes for the wealthy, and the wholesale displacement of poor people from neighborhoods like Southern Columbia Heights.

But success stories do exist. The National Tenant Day press conference was held in front of a five-unit apartment building on Euclid Street that had just been renovated. What made this a happy event instead of one more sad story of displacement was that the tenants themselves had purchased and renovated the building. They were preparing to move back into their apartments with the assurance that they would not be displaced as the neighborhood changes.

One resident, Joe Green, was particularly elated. In the 25 years of his life, he has never known another home. He grew up in that building. Now he, his wife, Rose, and their children live in a beautiful apartment. At Joe's suggestion, the tenants changed the name of the building from "The Rockne" to "The Long Time Coming Tenant Cooperative."

Pat Beynum, SCHTU's second vice president and press conference spokesperson, is convinced that the residents of Southern Columbia Heights can still save their neighborhood for themselves. "We have a chance," she says, "because we are getting organized."

In the last few years, SCHTU has been able to stop many illegal evictions and building closings, block illegal rent increases, and win major repairs for hundreds of tenants. SCHTU has also been an active force in shaping the city's housing policies, preserving a modest 56 units as low-income housing through cooperative development.

The tenant union's successes, however, are always tempered by the disappointments that are a daily reality in low-income neighborhoods like Southern Columbia Heights. What was a long time coming for Joe Green will never come for the tenants on 13th Street who lived in the building where the Southern Columbia Heights Tenants Union also was housed.

Two years ago the tenants bought their 43-unit building with the hope of preserving their homes. But the once-available rehabilitation money that they needed to bring the building up to legal habitable standards was canceled by Ronald Reagan. The tenants were left with no choice but to sell their building, and all have been forced to relocate. When asked why this happened, the tenants say that Reagan doesn't like the idea of poor people getting control over their homes and lives.

"But these setbacks," says Pat Beynum, "will not deter us from our goal of controlling our neighborhood for ourselves. Southern Columbia Heights belongs to us and not to the real estate speculators, developers, bankers, and landlords....If they have to bodily carry us out let them do just that, because we will not leave voluntarily. This is our home."

Keary Kincannon was a member of Sojourners Fellowship and worked with Sojourners housing ministry when this article appeared.