The "Constructive Demolition" of Public Housing (II)

In my previous post, I talked about how, in the 1980s, public housing authorities across the country removed the residents from projects and then abandoned the projects or significant parts of them. Public housing residents protested their displacement and this abandonment, which they understood as causing the demolition of public housing, though in a passive way, and which they called "constructive demolition." As discussed by Edward G. Goetz, public policy professor at the University of Minnesota, in his New Deal Ruins, the media and others would use what Goetz calls a "public-housing-as-disaster narrative" and blame public housing residents for the condition of public housing, which had cities had let deteriorate.

Goetz further observes that, in the 1990s, cities across the country turned to active demolition of public housing projects. The National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing (NCSDPH) and its final report were a fundamental part of this policy shift. Yesterday, in the National Archives in College Park, I came across the meeting transcripts of the NCSDPH, which are exceedingly interesting to read. (1) 

Kimi Gray and Mayor Marion Barry, Youth of Parkside

Kimi Gray visited a NCSDPH meeting in 1991. Kimi Gray was a very famous public housing organizer, who lived in the Kenilworth-Parkside public housing project in Ward 7. (She had become a darling of the Republican Party and an ally of Mayor Marion Barry, which is a story I'll discuss in later post.) In 1991, Kimi Gray recognized that cities across the nation were actively demolishing public housing because private developers wanted the land: "And all the prime land left is ours now. So now the game is to get rid of us." Public housing residents like those at Kenilworth-Parkside and Fort Dupont had organized themselves to resist this displacement and maintain permanent affordable housing for very low-income people. Public housing organizers helped residents around the country stop demolition and displacement. 

In the minutes, Kimi Gray states, "Right now we're fighting in this city to keep one of our prime properties from Capitol Hill. I mean we are physically fighting." Given the timing of the meeting, I am assuming that she and others were fighting against the demolition of the Ellen Wilson Dwellings, a public housing project around 6th and I Streets, SE. The Ellen Wilson Dwellings were abandoned in 1988 and then demolished in 1996 and turned into the Townhomes on Capitol Hill, a development without any rental units. If I am correct that Kimi Gray is talking about the Ellen Wilson Dwellings, then it is interesting that public housing residents were fighting to keep public housing "from" Capitol Hill. Did "Capitol Hill" mean a space or a force fundamentally different from that of Ellen Wilson? Was "Capitol Hill" some kind of colonizing force? Did Ellen Wilson have to be kept from "Capitol Hill" to remain public housing?


(1) Transcripts of Commission Meetings, Feb. 27 - Nov. 22, 1991; National Commission on Severely Distressed Public Housing, Box 1, Record Group 220 Records of Temporary Committees, Commissions and Boards, National Archives at College Park, MD. [I need to correct this citation today.]