Pennsylvania Ave SE Crime and Potomac Gardens

[Anonymous]

Random assaults outside the Harris Teeter. Any thoughts on what can be done?

http://www.princeofpetworth.com/2010/11/1300-...l-the-way-to-the-top

As far as I'm concerned, they need to ban anyone under the age of 65 from stepping foot inside of Potomac Gardens, knock down about 75% of the buildings, and give everybody else Section 8 vouchers and a bus ticket.

[Anonymous]

Whose fault is it that it got that way? The residents who live there. Builders don't build slums, they become that way.

[Anonymous]

DC needs nothing short of a total overhaul of its laws regarding youth offenders, but that won't happen, so we might as well get used to this sort of thing. I just don't understand why we haven't been able to have meaningful change to these laws when individuals under the age of 18 are committing so many of the violent crimes. They're bullet-proof, in the legal sense. Out the same day, or placed in zero-security group homes where they can spend half their time consorting with even worse offenders, and half their time wandering the streets of DC "entertaining" themselves and egging each other on to worse crime.

I am also in favor of stricter control of public housing. Drug testing, employment/ service requirements, and penalties for residents found harboring fugitives. The "no snitching" culture needs to go away, and the only way to do that is to make it very, very painful to uphold.

[Anonymous]

All of you are racists.

[Anonymous]

As far as I'm concerned, they need to ban anyone under the age of 65 from stepping foot inside of Potomac Gardens, knock down about 75% of the buildings, and give everybody else Section 8 vouchers and a bus ticket.

Whose fault is it that it got that way? The residents who live there. Builders don't build slums, they become that way.

Holy Jesus Christ on a stick do these comments give me chills. Do people really still think like that? I had thought we had moved beyond these sorts of assumptions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of you are racists.

Did you hit "submit" too soon? I've done that. By all means, please finish your post. I'm waiting to hear how you justify such a statement.

[Anonymous]

As the poster of this comment

Whose fault is it that it got that way? The residents who live there. Builders don't build slums, they become that way.


I am also a person who grew up in the projects in The Bronx, I can tell you first hand and all the others who claim racism, that it is not, it is a fact, the people who live there don't give a **** . Our building was a good building filled with people that cared and it showed. A building a few over was a rat infested hole in the wall.

Please read this from one of our neighbors and it shows people who live in projects can live a decent life when they give a ****

http://bronxboard.com/diary/diary.php?f=Castle%20On%20the%20Hill

Let me know if you have ever spent a night living in a housing project and then tell me about it.

[Anonymous]

I know good people who live in public housing, including Potomac Gardens and the Hopkins apartments, who are victimized by the crime even more than the people like me who live nearby -- and, yes, some of them are even under the age of 65!

If you don't want to be called racists, then stop talking about these places as if *everyone* living in them were vermin. 12:17, you said you grew up in a good building with people who cared so you know that it's an overgeneralization to say that the people who live there made them slums. Did you make your building a slum? Well neither did the kids who attend the tutoring program where I volunteer.

So let's address the crime problem without demonizing every young person who calls public housing home. Because a lot of them, like 12:17, don't deserve to be labeled criminals. Differentiate, people, differentiate!

[Anonymous]

All of you are racists.

vs.

Anonymous wrote:I know good people who live in public housing .... If you don't want to be called racists, then stop talking about these places as if *everyone* living in them were vermin. 12:17, you said you grew up in a good building with people who cared so you know that it's an overgeneralization to say that the people who live there made them slums. Did you make your building a slum? Well neither did the kids who attend the tutoring program where I volunteer. So let's address the crime problem without demonizing every young person who calls public housing home. Because a lot of them, like 12:17, don't deserve to be labeled criminals. Differentiate, people, differentiate!

I agree with your challenge not to stereotype, but isn't that exactly what PP did?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know good people who live in public housing, including Potomac Gardens and the Hopkins apartments, who are victimized by the crime even more than the people like me who live nearby -- and, yes, some of them are even under the age of 65!

If you don't want to be called racists, then stop talking about these places as if *everyone* living in them were vermin. 12:17, you said you grew up in a good building with people who cared so you know that it's an overgeneralization to say that the people who live there made them slums. Did you make your building a slum? Well neither did the kids who attend the tutoring program where I volunteer.

So let's address the crime problem without demonizing every young person who calls public housing home. Because a lot of them, like 12:17, don't deserve to be labeled criminals. Differentiate, people, differentiate!

Is it the people who live in Cleaveland Park that make them bad areas? We had a good building because everyone in it cared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know good people who live in public housing, including Potomac Gardens and the Hopkins apartments, who are victimized by the crime even more than the people like me who live nearby -- and, yes, some of them are even under the age of 65!

If you don't want to be called racists, then stop talking about these places as if *everyone* living in them were vermin. 12:17, you said you grew up in a good building with people who cared so you know that it's an overgeneralization to say that the people who live there made them slums. Did you make your building a slum? Well neither did the kids who attend the tutoring program where I volunteer.

So let's address the crime problem without demonizing every young person who calls public housing home. Because a lot of them, like 12:17, don't deserve to be labeled criminals. Differentiate, people, differentiate!

OP here. I don't disagree at all. There are plenty of people stuck in the Hell that is public housing, including Potomac Gardens. The fact that it's a shit-hole that cannot be managed effectively makes them victims as much as any neighbor. More so, actually.

What I'm unclear on is why this is considered some sort of argument in favor of maintaining the status quo. It's pretty clear that concentrated publicly financed housing for the poor doesn't work. That's why you need to shut the damned thing down. The difference between you and I appears to be that you want to keep folks penned up in this unsafe ghetto. I want to break it up and give its residents options.

But what you want and what I want don't really matter. At this point its only a matter of time before the whole crumbling edifice comes down. The reason you need to keep these places safe and functional is that, without the support of the public, public housing cannot be maintained. It's pretty clear this place cannot be kept safe and functional. Therefore it will be closed.

Blaming neighbors for refusing to wholeheartedly support a property that regularly emits folks who attack, rob, and assault them is ridiculous. Calling them "racist" makes the word meaningless.

[Anonymous]

NP here. I do not think that most of the residents of Potomac Gardens are troublemakers, but Potomac Gardens is the source of most of the crime that is committed on that part of the Hill.

[Anonymous]

OP your post makes zero sense. You are probably a fairly recent gentrifier on the Hill, as I am. I moved here with my eyes open about the fact that it is a complicated transitional neighborhood, and I hope you did too. The recent spate of crime is appalling, but so is your suggestion that longtime neighborhood residents should be sent elsewhere just so you don't have to deal with it. I think this may be the most simplistic form of NIMBYism I have ever seen, and yes I do agree that your ignorance carries an undercurrent of latent racism. If this was 5 years ago before they built Harris Teeter, you wouldn't give a crap about what goes on in/near Potomac Gardens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know good people who live in public housing, including Potomac Gardens and the Hopkins apartments, who are victimized by the crime even more than the people like me who live nearby -- and, yes, some of them are even under the age of 65!

If you don't want to be called racists, then stop talking about these places as if *everyone* living in them were vermin. 12:17, you said you grew up in a good building with people who cared so you know that it's an overgeneralization to say that the people who live there made them slums. Did you make your building a slum? Well neither did the kids who attend the tutoring program where I volunteer.

So let's address the crime problem without demonizing every young person who calls public housing home. Because a lot of them, like 12:17, don't deserve to be labeled criminals. Differentiate, people, differentiate!

OP here. I don't disagree at all. There are plenty of people stuck in the Hell that is public housing, including Potomac Gardens. The fact that it's a shit-hole that cannot be managed effectively makes them victims as much as any neighbor. More so, actually.

What I'm unclear on is why this is considered some sort of argument in favor of maintaining the status quo. It's pretty clear that concentrated publicly financed housing for the poor doesn't work. That's why you need to shut the damned thing down. The difference between you and I appears to be that you want to keep folks penned up in this unsafe ghetto. I want to break it up and give its residents options.

But what you want and what I want don't really matter. At this point its only a matter of time before the whole crumbling edifice comes down. The reason you need to keep these places safe and functional is that, without the support of the public, public housing cannot be maintained. It's pretty clear this place cannot be kept safe and functional. Therefore it will be closed.

Blaming neighbors for refusing to wholeheartedly support a property that regularly emits folks who attack, rob, and assault them is ridiculous. Calling them "racist" makes the word meaningless.

OP, nobody is defending the current state of things, but you can't possibly expect to be taken seriously when your best suggestion for improvement is demolition and bus tickets. When you come up with a more reasonable solution you may find more people to agree with you. In the meantime, I'd love to hear how you came to the conclusion that there is no way PG can be "kept safe and functional." What do you know about what has already been tried? What sources are you relying on? I'd love to see some links.

[Anonymous]

OP here:

so is your suggestion that longtime neighborhood residents should be sent elsewhere just so you don't have to deal with it.

This is a total misrepresentation. My suggestion is that PG should be torn down, converted into mixed-use housing, a portion of residents should remain, and the majority of existing residents should be given vouchers to live in "normal" housing with folks who aren't 100% poor.

You want to warehouse them behind that wrought-iron fence and take the cost of the crime--which strikes residents disproportionately--as just something that happens.

I'm curious, how long do you expect increasingly middle-class DC voters to support this kind of mass warehousing of poverty? Would you choose to live there? Frankly the current residents deserve a Hell of a lot better.

And quite frankly, you can go fuck yourself with your charges of "latent racism". Maybe you should look in the mirror, since you're clearly content to keep a 100% Black community penned up like animals.