Poverty: No one should experience poverty or economic insecurity
Percent of people below 200% poverty - All
Current Value
19.5%
Definition
Story Behind the Curve
What's working
- The city is setting aside low-income and workforce housing homeowner downpayment funds
- The city has created policies to promote living wages (higher minimum wages, mandatory leave)
- The city has capped annaul real estate tax increases for all income levels
- City has created policies to support building grocery stores to eliminate food deserts
What's not working
- Most of the affordable housing money is going towards preserving rental properties
- Most of the non public safety amenities are going to neighborhoods where white people live
- Zoning in lower-income neighborhoods doesn't typically allow for large commercial builds
- School lottery isn't solving the school resource problem, putting a further strain on struggling schools, and increasing education equity
Relevant messaging
- NIMBYism is forcing many social service providers into low-income neighborhoods which increase the narrative of scarcity and crime
- Black people only ask for public safety funds and grocery stores. They don't need dog parks and better infrastucture
Partners
- DC Public Schools
- Neighborhood commissioners (neighborhood level city council)
- Neighborhood associations
- Sibley Memorial Hospital
- DC Parks and Recreation
- Local Black developers
- WACIF
- Indusrtrial Bank (Black-owned bank located in most low-income neighborhoods)
- CNHED (Coalition for Nonprofit Housing & Economic Development)
- DC Office of Planning
- DC Housing Authority
- Manna
- Bright Beginnings
What Works
Potential Strategies to address the priority factors (evidence-based, promising practices, low cost/no cost, and off the wall)
- Change decision-makers' behavior to think across themes (education, housing, public health) and not just in silos
- Require all new development in mixed-use zones to include commercial builds and not just residential
- Use existing traffic ticket money ($100M+ annually) to pilot after-school programming and create 100 $100K jobs to promote cleaner neighborhoods across the city
- Give regional business tax incentives to create mini-retreats in cash strapped neighborhoods
- Give regional business tax incentives to open up offices in cash strapped neighborhoods
- Any homes built using public funding or public land will have a one week exclusive listing period for current neighbors who want to buy a home
- When redesigning public housing include revenue generating programs/products/infrastructure that also promote equitable environments (i.e. solar farm where some of the revenue goes to residents)
- Create a social services strategy (similar to what was done for housing) to ensure offices are spread equitably across the city
Strategy
| Strategies to reduce poverty | Responsible Partner(s) | Cost (Low,Med,Hi) | Timing |
| Develop a survey to ask residents to prioritize the behavior change they want to see in government |
Medici Road CHNED Bright Beginnings DC Office of Planning |
L | 2021 |
| Create a list of equitable outputs and outcomes that will guide the strategy |
Medici Road Neighborhood commissioners |
L | 2022 |
| Develop a podcast to change the conversation about solving poverty in a silo | Medici Road, Neighborhood Associations, and WHUR (radio station) | M | 2022 |
| Design, and execute, a prospective cohort study to track the 100 families who received the $100K jobs. Half will receive a poverty reduction program, the other half will only receive the salary bump. |
DC Public Schools Medici Road |
H | 2023 |
| Create an equitable social services location strategy |
Medici Road Bright Beginnings DC Dept of Human Services DC Dept of Behavioral Health |
L | 2022 |
| Develop a "designing differently" course to help government, philanthropic, and non profit decision-makers create new rules of engagement and program development. Make it mandatory for all new hires and grant recipients. |
Howard University Sibley Memorial Hospital Medici Road |
H | 2023 |
| Design a home ownership program that focuses on prioritizing current neighborhood residents. Neighborhoods would be those of heavy disinvestment. Location is not a protected class unlike race so we could focus on ownership in neighborhoods where POC live. |
Medici Road CHNED Local Black Developers |
L | 2022 |
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