Van Ness Public Housing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm late to this thread, but just wanted to chime in and say that I'm among the people who have fled Van Ness due to voucher tenants. Specifically, I lived in one of the large rent-controlled apartment buildings on upper Connecticut. I moved to DC to attend grad school, and I was attracted to the area because it seemed pleasant enough, had good Metro access, and was relatively affordable for someone on a lower income, like me. What ensued was the most stressful living experience of my life. People smoking weed in the hallways. Constant police activity. The guy down the hall from me had a lengthy criminal record (including carjackings and robberies). The guy above me would smoke weed and blare rap with his window open in the middle of the night. (I'm sure he was gainfully employed, with a sleep schedule like that.) Trashy parents screaming at their 6 kids with their windows open. Stabbings and assaults inside the building. Trash/litter everywhere. Roaches coming from nearby filthy units. Ugh, it was awful.

Another commenter pointed out that your experience in these buildings can vary depending on your proximity to voucher tenants. I found that to be true. My hallway was actually mostly fine--the neighbors were a mix of elderly people, students, and other hard-working lower/middle-income folks (the people hit hardest by idiotic DC housing policies). It was the wider environment of the building that was hell. I never knew what kind of bullshit I'd encounter in the lobby or outside of the building. The constant scent of weed coming from neighboring units, as well as occasional auditory pollution (screaming, rap music, etc) were the biggest problems I dealt with in my own unit.

It was also sad to see voucher tenants terrorize the Giant and the CVS by the Metro stop.

When I realized that it would be hard to escape voucher tenants without significantly increasing my rent, I just left DC. I now live in NoVa, where I am happy to say I live the quiet, peaceful, crime-free life that I'd imagine Van Ness used to offer.

It's sad, because I actually really like Van Ness as a neighborhood. I liked the community of businesses in the area (Bread Furst, Sfoglina, Politics & Prose, etc) and found the environment to be charming. I wish I could have experienced it 10-15 years ago.

Nothing has really changed, except now there is a “legal” marijuana dispensary on site to service this growing client base. Honestly most of us have given up on Matt Frumin who seems most interested in renaming parks and bridges. Sadly, our last hope is Eagle Ed and Trump to somehow help us.

I'm still waiting for someone -- anyone -- to give me one concrete accomplishment achieved by Frumin since he took office. Just one.

Old People Are Cool Month?

-1. Frumin is a candidate for the 25th Amendment. His socialist handlers send him on errands on his E bike while they write the legislation. If he does a good job they let him go watch a funk band.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm late to this thread, but just wanted to chime in and say that I'm among the people who have fled Van Ness due to voucher tenants. Specifically, I lived in one of the large rent-controlled apartment buildings on upper Connecticut. I moved to DC to attend grad school, and I was attracted to the area because it seemed pleasant enough, had good Metro access, and was relatively affordable for someone on a lower income, like me. What ensued was the most stressful living experience of my life. People smoking weed in the hallways. Constant police activity. The guy down the hall from me had a lengthy criminal record (including carjackings and robberies). The guy above me would smoke weed and blare rap with his window open in the middle of the night. (I'm sure he was gainfully employed, with a sleep schedule like that.) Trashy parents screaming at their 6 kids with their windows open. Stabbings and assaults inside the building. Trash/litter everywhere. Roaches coming from nearby filthy units. Ugh, it was awful.

Another commenter pointed out that your experience in these buildings can vary depending on your proximity to voucher tenants. I found that to be true. My hallway was actually mostly fine--the neighbors were a mix of elderly people, students, and other hard-working lower/middle-income folks (the people hit hardest by idiotic DC housing policies). It was the wider environment of the building that was hell. I never knew what kind of bullshit I'd encounter in the lobby or outside of the building. The constant scent of weed coming from neighboring units, as well as occasional auditory pollution (screaming, rap music, etc) were the biggest problems I dealt with in my own unit.

It was also sad to see voucher tenants terrorize the Giant and the CVS by the Metro stop.

When I realized that it would be hard to escape voucher tenants without significantly increasing my rent, I just left DC. I now live in NoVa, where I am happy to say I live the quiet, peaceful, crime-free life that I'd imagine Van Ness used to offer.

It's sad, because I actually really like Van Ness as a neighborhood. I liked the community of businesses in the area (Bread Furst, Sfoglina, Politics & Prose, etc) and found the environment to be charming. I wish I could have experienced it 10-15 years ago.

Nothing has really changed, except now there is a “legal” marijuana dispensary on site to service this growing client base. Honestly most of us have given up on Matt Frumin who seems most interested in renaming parks and bridges. Sadly, our last hope is Eagle Ed and Trump to somehow help us.

I'm still waiting for someone -- anyone -- to give me one concrete accomplishment achieved by Frumin since he took office. Just one.

Old People Are Cool Month?

-1. Frumin is a candidate for the 25th Amendment. His socialist handlers send him on errands on his E bike while they write the legislation. If he does a good job they let him go watch a funk band.

Or, alternately, he parks his personal car like three blocks away from an event so it makes it seem as if he walked there or used public transportation. He's been busted numerous times doing this.

[Anonymous]

Why can't the city reward good citizenship with a decent, crime-free place to live? Why are the elderly being punished?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can't the city reward good citizenship with a decent, crime-free place to live? Why are the elderly being punished?

They’re trying to push the elderly out of rent controlled apartments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't the city reward good citizenship with a decent, crime-free place to live? Why are the elderly being punished?

They’re trying to push the elderly out of rent controlled apartments.

Yep. This is both a financial gift to the landlords and helps idiots like Frumin feel like they're helping the less fortunate. And it doesn't touch those wealthy enough to not be bothered. The perfect scam.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't the city reward good citizenship with a decent, crime-free place to live? Why are the elderly being punished?

They’re trying to push the elderly out of rent controlled apartments.

Yep. This is both a financial gift to the landlords and helps idiots like Frumin feel like they're helping the less fortunate. And it doesn't touch those wealthy enough to not be bothered. The perfect scam.

Frumin has been a disaster for Ward 3.

[Anonymous]

Latest on Avalon situation

https://www.foresthillsconnection.com/?s=Avalon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A man -- almost certainly a voucher recipient or someone who was living with a voucher recipient -- has been charged with murder over the September death of an 18-month-old girl at Sedgwick Gardens, the building that first garnered attention over voucher recipients:

https://mpdc.dc.gov/release/mpd-makes-arrest-juvenile-homicide

The police report, which you can find on the DC court case online lookup, is absolutely horrific. The Sedgewick Gardens management also seems as if it did not want to provide security-camera footage to the police, if you read the report. Shady, shady stuff.

This is a separate case from the other instance of a child's death at the hands of an adult voucher recipient, about 0.7 miles north on Connecticut. That man still has yet to be charged with anything more than cruelty to children, however, and is not being detained until trial.

At what point does someone -- ANYONE -- step in here and say this program has gone horrifically wrong? How many more kids need to die? 5? 10?

It sounds as if a lot of camera footage was deleted rather than provided. That should be investigated.

[Anonymous]

There was another recent shots fired incident outside The Saratoga at Connecticut and Brandywine NW recently, just before 10pm. No one was hit, thank goodness. MPD pulled over a car, did not hear of arrest.

The Saratoga is also where a man was shot outside atound 3pm on a Saturday last year. The shooters ran away across Forest Hills playground. In both cases, rainy weather minimized number of people around so no one was hit by stray bullets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There was another recent shots fired incident outside The Saratoga at Connecticut and Brandywine NW recently, just before 10pm. No one was hit, thank goodness. MPD pulled over a car, did not hear of arrest.

The Saratoga is also where a man was shot outside atound 3pm on a Saturday last year. The shooters ran away across Forest Hills playground. In both cases, rainy weather minimized number of people around so no one was hit by stray bullets.

So, a mostly peaceful shooting?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm late to this thread, but just wanted to chime in and say that I'm among the people who have fled Van Ness due to voucher tenants. Specifically, I lived in one of the large rent-controlled apartment buildings on upper Connecticut. I moved to DC to attend grad school, and I was attracted to the area because it seemed pleasant enough, had good Metro access, and was relatively affordable for someone on a lower income, like me. What ensued was the most stressful living experience of my life. People smoking weed in the hallways. Constant police activity. The guy down the hall from me had a lengthy criminal record (including carjackings and robberies). The guy above me would smoke weed and blare rap with his window open in the middle of the night. (I'm sure he was gainfully employed, with a sleep schedule like that.) Trashy parents screaming at their 6 kids with their windows open. Stabbings and assaults inside the building. Trash/litter everywhere. Roaches coming from nearby filthy units. Ugh, it was awful.

Another commenter pointed out that your experience in these buildings can vary depending on your proximity to voucher tenants. I found that to be true. My hallway was actually mostly fine--the neighbors were a mix of elderly people, students, and other hard-working lower/middle-income folks (the people hit hardest by idiotic DC housing policies). It was the wider environment of the building that was hell. I never knew what kind of bullshit I'd encounter in the lobby or outside of the building. The constant scent of weed coming from neighboring units, as well as occasional auditory pollution (screaming, rap music, etc) were the biggest problems I dealt with in my own unit.

It was also sad to see voucher tenants terrorize the Giant and the CVS by the Metro stop.

When I realized that it would be hard to escape voucher tenants without significantly increasing my rent, I just left DC. I now live in NoVa, where I am happy to say I live the quiet, peaceful, crime-free life that I'd imagine Van Ness used to offer.

It's sad, because I actually really like Van Ness as a neighborhood. I liked the community of businesses in the area (Bread Furst, Sfoglina, Politics & Prose, etc) and found the environment to be charming. I wish I could have experienced it 10-15 years ago.

Nothing has really changed, except now there is a “legal” marijuana dispensary on site to service this growing client base. Honestly most of us have given up on Matt Frumin who seems most interested in renaming parks and bridges. Sadly, our last hope is Eagle Ed and Trump to somehow help us.

I'm still waiting for someone -- anyone -- to give me one concrete accomplishment achieved by Frumin since he took office. Just one.

Old People Are Cool Month?

-1. Frumin is a candidate for the 25th Amendment. His socialist handlers send him on errands on his E bike while they write the legislation. If he does a good job they let him go watch a funk band.

Or, alternately, he parks his personal car like three blocks away from an event so it makes it seem as if he walked there or used public transportation. He's been busted numerous times doing this.

This is embarrassing. Why not just drive there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honest question, not trying to be snarky, but why can’t these people just get jobs? There is s labor shortage.

If you had lived with them like I did, you wouldn't ask that question. I'm so surprised people don't understand how hard it is to come out of poverty in US if you were born into it in US.
These people have mental, physical health problems, and who knows what else. Their family, friends, partners, and acquaintances have even bigger issues they pile on the few who would like to do better.
When I first arrived in DC, poor and homeless, Section 8 people hid me in 3 different homes in Columbia Heights.
I had never seen so much dysfunction in my life. There was also drug use, but the most harmful was set poverty mindset, which at the time I had no idea existed.
They also had zero emotional control because of upbringing, childhood trauma.
When I got a job, I lost $5k to the 'helpers' as fast as I could earn it. The only way out was to run away and never look back.
I was not related to them, so it was easier for me to disappear. I was chased and dragged on the street as I tried to flee. Normal part of trying to escape poverty and someone being upset over losing their meal ticket.
Had I stayed, they would have taken me down with them financially and emotionally.
By the way, there was a huge amount of wage theft that happened to me and happens all the time with low wage jobs without contract. I took it as part of capitalism. I bet the poor would not have taken that crap.
I remember one guy working for a week and standing there on Friday til they wrote him a personal check. Meanwhile, I'm standing there still waiting to get paid for last 10 weeks. They just have different way of doing things because of their life experiences.They have 'zero patience for pullsh_t'.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaPAbi0xtQ8

I am really trying to understand what you're saying and I think I can picture what you're trying to say but at the same time, you haven't said anything that makes sense. What are the "helpers"?