Date: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 10:22:52 -0400
From: Chuck0 <chuck-AT-tao.ca>
Subject: [i-news]: Washington, DC: A Rogue Renovation


Practical anarchism hits D.C.!

A Rogue Renovation

The group Homes Not Jails says it's fixing up the Columbia Heights house
so a homeless family can move in. Member Jennifer Kirby, left, gets an
earful from neighbor Theresa James Taylor.

By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July      21, 2000; Page A01

Dropping the laundry and her Wednesday morning routine of 37 years,
Marylyn Marbury ran outside her Columbia Heights row house to witness a
spectacle that horrified her husband, Robert, and the neighbors who
stood alongside him, aghast.

On their block of Sherman Avenue NW, a working-class neighborhood where
Duke Ellington once lived and families occupy homes for generations, a
ragtag assemblage of housing activists had cracked open an abandoned
town house and proclaimed they were making it habitable for the
homeless.

The residents shook their heads and covered their open mouths as the
rogue remodelers hauled away molding rugs, rusting metal and torn window
screens in a burgundy Volvo station wagon. Banners unfurled: "Homeless
Family Reunited Here." "Housing by any means necessary."

The scene on Sherman Avenue has unfolded over two days now, a little
passion play with an increasingly agitated cast of characters: angry
residents intent on controlling the fate of their block, defensive
activists bent on doing a good deed and confounded city officials trying
to figure out where, or even whether, they fit in.

Inside the row house, the workers ran on communal pots of pasta, donated
tools and little sleep. They photographed themselves after painting one
crumbling room periwinkle and a hallway butter yellow, and they
festooned the place with streamers and balloons. The fledgling group
promised that this was the first of many such home rehabilitations.

"Housing is a basic human right," said Jennifer Kirby, a 22-year-old
activist who grew up in Takoma Park. "Here, we're using sweat equity to
make a home for a family that needs it most."

Outside, the people who played jump rope on Sherman Avenue in the 1940s
and raised their children there in the '60s said they felt they had been
shown disrespect by the surprise invasion of a home they fought to
condemn almost two years ago.

"They literally tried to just take over our neighborhood, like we don't
care about it ourselves," said Theresa James Taylor, 60, who is the
second generation of her family to live on Sherman Avenue. "I'm not
heartless; I know everybody needs a home. But this can't be the right
way to go about it. If they're so concerned with the homeless, why don't
they find them a home in their neighborhood or their parents'
neighborhood? Why us?"

Kirby calmly talked to each of the Sherman Avenue residents who fumed at
her. On the steps of a pale yellow row house bedecked with petunias, she
listened to John Dickinson, 76, angrily tell her to leave.

"These people have worked hard. Y'all leave us alone here," Dickinson
told Kirby, as he towered above her slight frame. "Every coin has two
sides, and you're not seeing our side. We've lived here all our lives.
You've been here a day."

Kirby said she expects residents like Dickinson to resist the group's
efforts. "You'd get this in any neighborhood, no matter where you go,"
she said.

Her group calls itself Homes Not Jails, and its occupation of 2809
Sherman Ave. also flummoxed District officials, who were uncertain
whether a crime was being committed.

Police arrived Wednesday morning when neighbors called to report a
break-in, but after an aggressive beginning, they backed off. "They
broke through our barricades and told us they were going to arrest us,
but then they just stood around and didn't know what to do," said Kate
Loewe, a 21-year-old activist.

Officers were unsure whether the activists were squatting, trespassing
or simply demonstrating. When they arrived, they found the offenders
painting, repairing drywall, installing smoke detectors and hauling
trash.

"I arrived there last night and had to ask, 'Is there any harm being
done?' " said Assistant Executive Chief Terrance W. Gainer. "It looked
like a constructive situation. On the other hand, I had to be
empathetic. If someone just moved into someone else's house, do I let
them stay?"

Using the negotiating skills he honed with activists of similar pedigree
who tried to block the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
meetings in April, Gainer weighed the situation and pulled his troops
out.

"I'm kind of inclined to make this a civil, not a criminal, issue," he
said. "They're making improvements, trying to help the homeless,
clearing out trash, and there's no complainant. They're also living in a
house that's not theirs. They've got three pluses and one minus against
them."

Land records show that the 85-year-old town house is owned by Paul
Musoke, a Massachusetts man who bought it 11 years ago. Neighbors said
the last renters moved out about a year and a half ago. Because the
building is privately owned and was abandoned, the city can take no
legal action until the owner complains. There is no phone listing for
Musoke, and District officials said they have yet to find him.

When the house became unoccupied and rat-infested, residents lobbied
D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) to help seal the nuisance.

"The neighbors are very upset about this. I remember they worked hard to
get it boarded up," Graham said. "Having said that, I sympathize with
the demonstrators' objective. This is not the way to make their point,
but our rehabilitation of nuisance properties is moving far too slowly,
and everyone is fed up."

While housing officials tried to find a way to respond to the remodelers
and police threw up their hands, neighbors begged someone to listen to
them. "This really hurt our feelings," James Moore said. "What they are
doing has got to be illegal."

Officials said the only way the activists could be evicted is if a fire
inspection condemns the building. So, at the behest of his distressed
constituents, Graham sent inspectors a letter requesting a visit, which
is set for today.

The activists, standing ready to be evicted at any moment, kept working.

"People stopped to help us paint," Loewe said. "We gave them tours of
the house. Things are going well. We're talking to neighbors, letting
them know what we're doing. I think we're all basically on the same
page."

© 2000 The Washington Post Company


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