Harnessing The Power Of Gentrification

Washington D.C.'s New Communities program sells market rate housing to help subsidize adjacent low-income homes, but do the city's poor really benefit?

1 minute read

May 18, 2005, 7:00 AM PDT

By David Gest

"The New Communities initiative seeks to harness escalating property values by replacing bleak blocks of concentrated poverty with townhouses and apartments attractive to middle- and upper-income buyers. Profits would help subsidize homes for working-class families and improve the lives of the poor families who live there now. Modeled on HOPE VI, a federal housing program targeted for elimination by the Bush administration, New Communities is being praised by national housing advocates, who call it an innovative and ambitious attempt to give the poor a share in the city's affluence.

Thanks to David Gest

FULL STORY: Some of D.C.'s Poor Question Their Place in Housing Plan

Sunday, May 15, 2005 in The Washington Post

Housing District of Columbia

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