Investing in People and Building Strong Communities; the Fightback against Inequality through a New System of Economic Development.
Washington DC needs a new system of economic development that attacks the problem of inequality through focused investment in people and their communities. Crucially, this new system must ensure that DC’s most marginalized residents have the ability to engage both in the economy and in the civic decisions that affect their lives daily. To do this, investments must be made with the intention of ensuring that every neighborhood in the District is free from violence and that all residents have access to safe/affordable housing, quality healthcare, healthy foods, and a world-class public education.
What follows is a proposed framework to design a new system, one aimed at attacking inequality and transforming the political culture of the nation’s capital.
Development without Displacement- Investment in Social Housing
The District should adopt social housing as the foundation of a new economic development policy focused on affordable housing production, jobs, and economic integration. Social housing is permanently affordable, mixed-income housing that pays for itself; it is a proven concept that has achieved unparalleled success in places where it has been implemented. What makes social housing unique is that it eliminates dependance on private developers and institutional investors to determine what type of housing gets built in our cities. Instead, social housing empowers governments to use public resources to build high-quality affordable housing that people need. Social housing is also a flexible development model, it can be used to build rental housing as well as create pathways to home ownership. Social housing’s power comes from its ability to pay for itself and the fact that it does not need to generate large profits for Wall Street speculators; these two qualities allow the model to operate with maximum economic efficiency. Cities across the United States are beginning to realize the benefits of social housing and are adopting this approach to solve their affordable housing emergencies. In fact, one of the most successful social housing models in the U.S. is just a stone’s throw from the District, in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Although social housing is owned by the government, one should not confuse it with traditional public housing; it is very different. Unlike public housing, social housing is mixed income; this means that it does not concentrate extremely-low renters into one building or into segregated communities. This mixed-income structure allows social housing to provide desperately needed affordable housing for people who make too much to qualify for a housing subsidy but who cannot afford DC’s outrageous rents. As such, social housing can provide a pathway to affordable housing for the District’s teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters, and early childhood educators; it does this while also serving low-income residents. This makes social housing a wise fiscal investment as well as a transformative housing solution for city governments.
Social housing should be built in every neighborhood and benefit every community in the District. However, when this housing is built in DC’s most marginalized communities it will provide a unique opportunity for economic integration without displacing existing residents. The development of social housing in these neighborhoods will not only provide much needed housing to current residents, it will also attract new residents to take advantage of this affordable, high quality housing option. In this way, social housing works to economically integrate communities without displacing the people who currently live there. Economic integration will promote positive development in the form of grocery stores, restaurants, and other types of small business. Like any other large scale infrastructure project, this housing production will also provide jobs; giving unemployed and underemployed DC residents the ability to participate in reimagining their communities while solving the District’s housing crisis. The ability to develop a local workforce of highly skilled tradespeople could be transformational in a number of ways. We talk more about this below in the section titled “Workforce Development”.
Growing economically and socially integrated communities will mean better schools and overall development that enhances the public good for the families living in these neighborhoods. Moreover, if these communities share a collective vision of what is in everyone’s best interest, they will be able to exercise enhanced political power. This can create a bulwark against localized corruption.
Expanding Access and Infrastructure for Early Childhood Education
An economic development strategy aimed at combating inequality and promoting sustained long-term growth must invest robustly in early child care/early education. These investments are key to providing stability to young families and giving kids a strong foundation to set them up to thrive. Our early child care and education system must be designed to be accessible, available at birth, high quality, and affordable. Systems should be put in place to ensure mothers have extensive leave after giving birth to bond with their child as well as access to home visits by health professionals. Lastly, to implement this early childcare system, infrastructure must be developed to ensure that early childhood centers are widely available and can accommodate all families. This means childcare centers must both be structured and staffed with well paid professionals to meet the need of universal access. This investment will no doubt have significant upfront costs but those costs will be more than offset by the profound long-term benefits to the health of DC families.
Transforming Public Schools; giving every child a world class education at their neighborhood public school.
The culture of the leadership in the District Public School System is a culture of failure. Shamefully, this leadership has ceded their authority to the charter school system and allowed neighborhood public schools to effectively become schools of last resort; this is especially true at neighborhood public schools located in DC’s most marginalized communities. The fact that in the wealthiest country in the world, thousands of kids cannot get a decent education at their neighborhood public school is an absurdity and should bring shame to every adult who lives in DC. Our public school system must be redesigned so that neighborhood public schools become the foundation of our education system. These schools should be HUBS of community activity where people gather to enjoy sports, plays, and music. These institutions should nourish critical thought and put children on a path to success.
It is impossible to eliminate inequality unless all children have access to a quality education. DC has no excuse not to have the best public schools in the United States. A renewed focus on stabilizing our most marginalized neighborhoods through targeted investment meant to economically integrate neighborhoods, along with making neighborhood public schools the lynchpin of those communities, will create a new dynamic that further brings people together and transforms our education system for the better.
Investment in Community- A Culture of Learning
The District should partner with its universities to ensure higher education is free for its residents while simultaneously ensuring kids take advantage of this opportunity. This means the development of a cadre of residents responsible for the task of getting children prepared to continue their education post high school graduation. To do this, the District should recruit teachers, mentors, tutors, coaches, mental health professionals, dieticians and health care workers. These workers will be singularly focused on the goal of academic readiness as well as ensuring both physical and mental health so children can eliminate distractions and learn.
Every child must be expected to graduate high school, and have the options for trade school or college at no cost. Once their education is completed, these new professionals should be encouraged to return to their communities to develop a new generation of students to follow their path of learning. Those who chose to return and pour back into their communities will inevitably become the future leaders of the District. Creating options for people through continued learning will build critical thought, improve outcomes within our public school system, promote civic engagement, and make neighborhoods safe.
An educated population with a collective vision has a greater capacity to meaningfully participate and impact the political system in a positive way. This is the only real way to effectively beat back the rampant inequality and corruption which currently defines DC. A population capable of participation in multiple sectors of our economy will make DC fundamentally more democratic.
Workforce Development
The unemployment rate among black men in DC’s most marginalized neighborhoods in among the highest in the nation. Lack of meaningful employment is one of the key factors that contribute to community instability. Unemployment and underemployment lead to evictions and misery for entire families. They also contribute to crime, increase gun violence, and end in the incarceration of young people from DC’s most impoverished communities. These convictions then provide another hurdle to civic and economic participation for formerly incarcerated residents. Eviction, unemployment, and incarceration drive inequality in the District.
As such, investments that lead to meaningful work for District residents are some of the most impactful that the District can make. Social housing provides an opportunity for targeted employment through transformational change to the housing system. The goal would be to get people working immediately with a longer vision of targeted training to prepare those workers for highly skilled jobs in the building trades. Developing highly skilled tradespeople will put DC in a position to build a network of social housing of the highest quality with maximum efficiency. It will also allow the District to employ its own residents to work in additional infrastructure projects. A working-class block which defines its own agenda and ensures DC is an affordable and safe place to raise their families, while also providing their children the opportunity to get a tremendous education, will play a decisive role in the formation of District politics into the future.
A Revolution In Literacy
In order to defeat inequality, all residents must be empowered to meaningfully participate in the economy and more broadly in the political decisions that impact their families lives on a daily basis. Illiteracy is rampant in the United States and is a scourge locally as well. As of 2024 only 33% of DC public school students read at grade level. The numbers are worse at our schools East of the River. This reality contributes to an existing crisis in adult illiteracy.
Illiteracy is a silent roadblock to economic viability for many DC residents. It saps people’s self-confidence, and prevents adults from finding meaningful employment. Simply put, the District needs to launch a revolution in literacy that develops a coordinated approach to ensure it achieves universal literacy as quickly as possible. Illiteracy must be eradicated totally and forever in Washington DC.
A Revolution in Health:
Every resident must have free access to quality health care in their community. To this end, community health centers should be deployed in every neighborhood. These community centers should be focused on preventative care, including access to mental health care.
Families must also have access to healthy foods both in their homes and at school. Education campaigns should begin in earnest to address childhood obesity and put kids on a healthy path to adulthood. Preventive care through a focus on public health and diet will promote the holistic development of children as well as save the District health care costs in the long term.
Green Space in all communities should also be preserved and enhanced. DC is blessed with more green space than almost any other municipality; it should take advantage of this through continued investment in dedicated biking and walking trails that allow for exercise/meditation while also forming an alternative transportation network to connect people across the District.
Conclusion
The District’s current model of economic development has been a failure. It has produced a deeply unequal society manifested by extreme gun violence in our streets, a crushing affordable housing crisis, and a public school system that does not adequately educate the majority of its students. It is imperative that we adopt a new system that fights back against this inequality and invests in our most marginalized neighborhoods by building housing people can afford, making their schools among the best in world, and providing clear pathways to meaningful and fulfilling employment. The current system has at its core a perverse power dynamic that creates wealth for the few but drives many residents into deep poverty. We must organize to create a new system that uplifts all residents and transforms the political culture of DC.
If you believe in these principles, let’s start to building together. Contact the Center for Social Housing and Public Investment at wmerrifield@socialhouisngcenter.org and let’s start moving toward something different and profound.