Jubilee Housing works to build diverse, compassionate communities that create opportunities for everyone to thrive. We do this by creating justice through housing – justice housing.

We are heartbroken and angered by the lives taken, and join the voices of so many demanding justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and all those that have lost their lives due to persistent personal and systemic racism. Black Lives Matter, unequivocally.

Jubilee Housing was founded in another time of great unrest, after the riots that followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in response to tremendous racial and economic inequalities that presented themselves in substandard housing. Today we see that despite our perceived progress, the cracks in our nation’s foundation run deep.

COVID-19 has stripped away the blinders, as black and brown communities are bearing a highly disproportionate share of the death toll. This tragedy further exposes the decades of structural discrimination resulting in wealth and income gaps that impact every aspect of life and especially health and wellbeing. Now, these horrific acts of violence further underscores the degree to which our institutions, and we as people, continue to be trapped by racism.

We find ourselves again in a period of profound upheaval and grief, and we cannot stand by in silence. The time has come to rise up together to address these inequities. Jubilee Housing affirms our commitment to racial equity and resolves to put it at the forefront of our work.

There is so much we have to do to uproot systemic racism in our country. We have to recognize it in ourselves and call it out in our friends and family. We must promote equity in our businesses, organizations, and levels of government so that voices long marginalized have the power to affect change. We must vote for and enact reforms in every aspect of our justice system that exploits and mass incarcerates black Americans.

We must build a foundation for justice through housing and help give place and voice to a community that has yet to receive the promise of an equal and just society.

From slavery, to sharecropping, Jim Crow, redlining, and mass incarceration – all the formal and informal ways we discriminate today – controlling where and how people of color live has been a key pillar of racism. In our own city, we know that residents who live in Wards 7 & 8 can expect to live 20 years less than residents living in Wards 2 & 3. We know that zip codes have power – research by Raj Chetty and others show that zip code is the single highest predictor of future success.

While we continue to do the work of providing deeply affordable housing and supportive services, we affirm our commitment to asking questions, listening, learning, and understanding the impact decisions and policies we implement have on the communities we serve.

Housing alone will not end personal and systemic racism, but it is a foundation for justice. Ensuring that all residents are able to live and thrive in DC will go a long way in helping us achieve equity. Together we can rise up, demand justice, and continue this critical work.

This moment must be one of change. Here are some resources for taking action, learning, and healing.

On February 13^th, 2019, Jubilee Housing opened its wait list for the first time in nearly 10 years.

Over 250 people began lining up at 3:30 a.m. for just over 60 available units. These people came from diverse backgrounds and showed the depth of the need in the city for justice housing – deeply affordable homes in thriving neighborhoods with supportive services onsite and nearby.

One applicant works at a nearby hotel. Technically homeless, she lives with a friend in the area. All she wants is a place that she can afford near the place where she works.

Another applicant was a senior living with disability. Homeless, she enrolled in a job training program. Still, she couldn’t imagine affording a place of her own even after she graduates the program. She’s lived in cheap apartments in Southeast, and had multiple homes broken into. All she wants is a place that is safe and quiet. 

A third applicant has been waiting for Section 8 housing for 14 years with no luck. What these new apartments represent to her is hope for housing in a realistic time frame.

Jubilee Housing accepted 250 applications, 200 in person and 50 online. This was the first time Jubilee has accepted online applications through its website. The 50 available online applications were completed in just under 15 minutes. While Jubilee Housing is tremendously grateful for the opportunity to house 64 more households, we are also emboldened to do more to address the incredible need for more deeply affordable housing!

In an era of uncertainty, one thing is sure: DC is an expensive place to call home, and it’s only getting worse.

Gleaming, new development dots nearly every community as luxury condos and high-end rentals explode out of lots that once housed working-class families. Locally owned businesses are getting priced out by gentrification to make room for national chain stores. New residents flock to the city—about 800 a month—even as its economy remains largely dependent on the budgetary caprices of the federal government. What housing remains affordable is increasingly further away from the city’s core commercial districts.

The debate over DC’s fortunes as an en vogue place to live for people with high incomes will no doubt continue unabated. Meanwhile, a more immediate and impactful debate affects city residents who aren’t sure where they might end up next. Like many of America’s great cities, DC is in the midst of an acute housing affordability crisis that is forcing out many long-time residents.

As hundreds of new residents settle in DC each month, residents who have been here for generations are feeling unwelcome in the city they call home and are missing out on economic advantages, as the city prospers. Many DC residents juggle long commutes to jobs—sometimes two and three jobs—where they provide critical services to our communities, but don’t receive living wages.

Despite hard work and dedication, 60 percent of these residents come home to a house or apartment that costs more than half of their monthly take-home pay. Studies show some families in the DC area are getting by on less than $24,500, and after they pay rent and buy food, these families have little to no income left to put away for medical emergencies or a college fund or the rainy-day savings fund we all know we need but sometimes neglect.

Something’s got to give for these individuals who are already giving so much.

For more than 40 years, Jubilee Housing has provided justice housing™ to DC residents with very low to moderate incomes. Justice housing is high-quality, deeply affordable housing with nearby and on-site programming in resource-rich neighborhoods. Justice housing seeks to address the systemic and historical inequities that have left too many of our neighbors without access to the ingredients we all need to thrive.

• Providing deeply affordable homes—homes that residents are proud to call theirs—is the foundation. Housing stability can affect a person’s wellness. High-quality housing can alleviate both physical and mental stress, allowing residents to focus on the circumstances that bring them joy, from spending time with children to pursuing hobbies.
• Supportive services help residents on their paths to wellness, careers, college, and financial stability. Having a team of trusted, knowledgeable people ready to guidance opens new opportunities.
• Thriving neighborhoods offer conveniences that uncomplicate and enrich residents’ lives. Restaurants, grocery stores, art spaces, banks, doctors, and parks should be accessible to everyone—not just to those who can afford to pay sky-high rent.

Success—including future income, college attendance, and the probability of having a teenage birth—is directly tied to where a person lives, down to the city and ZIP code. In a world that feels increasingly small, it’s easy to forget how physical space both separates us and influences every decision and opportunity in our day.

That’s why Jubilee Housing has undertaken a bold, new five-year plan for justice housing, “Justice Housing in Action,” (see the lead story in this newsletter) to create inclusive, equitable communities with abundant opportunity.

We want longtime residents who’ve made DC a unique, vibrant community to feel like the city they cherish values them in return. In justice housing, every individual is respected and valued for the role they play in building a strong community. Families facing the greatest barriers—including those with the fewest assets—can live successful lives.

As DC grapples with ensuring inclusive communities across the city, Jubilee Housing advances practices that take into account the historical racism that has contributed to division and disparity in the District. Housing discrimination and affordability have been significant factors in perpetuating inequity. A recent panel discussion, sponsored by The Atlantic and Fannie Mae to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the passage of the Fair Housing Act, underscored that point.

Passed within days of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, the law made it illegal to refuse to sell or rent to any person of a protected class. The law is considered a landmark achievement of the civil rights era, but panelists emphasized that much work is yet to be done to ensure equal access to housing.

“Today, two-thirds of African-Americans live in low-opportunity settings,” said Sheryll Cashin, a professor of law, civil rights, and social justice at Georgetown Law. “Everywhere you turn in a low-opportunity setting, you are constrained in terms of access to jobs, education, and networks.”

Although the law made it illegal to discriminate against people seeking housing based on their race, gender, religion, disability, familial status, national origin, or sexual orientation, racist and opportunistic bankers, realtors, and government officials still found ways to marginalize black families seeking housing.

The practice of “redlining,” or denying financial services to a community because of its racial composition, has long propagated housing segregation. In addition, banks continued to deny loans and mortgages to black families, effectively shutting them out of white, middle-class communities.

Because redlining and other discriminatory practices closed them off from lending sources, many black families were forced to purchase homes using contracts with grossly inflated prices. This practice, known as “contract selling,” targeted vulnerable black homebuyers and forced them to pay exorbitant fees for loan maintenance until all payments were made to the seller. Although blatantly predatory and discriminatory, contract selling remains legal today.

“When you’re desperate for housing and desperate for a place to raise your kids, you do desperate things,” said Ralph Blessing, a former student organizer with the Contract Buyers League.

Decades of these racially discriminatory housing practices have compounded the disparities black communities struggle with today.

“We can’t look at housing separate from everything else,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “Housing is connected with every other issue we’re talking about – education, transportation, employment, even water affordability – and understanding how all those threads bear on this question of equity and housing is important.”

Jubilee understands its work as combating structural inequity and creating justice through housing—justice housing. By building homes that are deeply affordable, have on-site and nearby programs, and are in a thriving neighborhood, we create an antidote to the divisions that threaten our social fabric. In justice housing, all members of the community are welcomed and valued.

Jubilee Housing’s experience with the District’s Housing Production Trust Fund refutes the heavy-handed conclusions of a recent audit of the fund. Its suggestion that the fund is mismanaged or limited in its usefulness is entirely incorrect.

We have seen the results first hand. Over the past 15 years, Jubilee has renovated eight buildings that provide approximately 230 affordable homes, in total, using $16 million of trust fund investments. In addition to creating homes affordable to families with very low and extremely low incomes in the rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods of Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, and Mount Pleasant, trust fund dollars have ensured that level of affordability for a minimum of 40 years.

More broadly, the fund has generated 10,000 plus affordable homes in the past 15 years, according to the audit. All these units will remain highly affordable to the next two generations of District residents, at a minimum.

From Jubilee’s perspective, the trust fund is working.

Jubilee agrees with the audit’s call for greater accountability. Many of the shortcomings cited in the audit stem from the fund’s earliest years, when the volume of loans was much lower and systems had yet to be established. We point to steps taken to add staff to monitor compliance with the fund’s terms and to introduce automated controls as indications of the Mayor’s effort to strengthen the fund. We also note that the fund successfully invested more than $130 million last year alone and appears on course to match that amount for a second straight year.

The most pressing finding in the audit cites the difficulty in meeting statutory income targets. Jubilee strongly supports requirements that 40 percent of trust fund dollars be used to produce homes affordable to D.C. residents with extremely low incomes (30 percent of area median income and below) and another 40 percent go towards homes for those earning very low incomes (50 percent of AMI). Recent funding rounds have produced more homes affordable at those levels. To ensure that the trust fund can sustain this critical trend, the city must also continue to invest in funding for the Local Rent Subsidy Program, which enables developers like Jubilee to reach affordability for residents with extremely low incomes.

Make no mistake. Our city continues to face an unrelenting affordability crisis in which far too many residents are being left behind as the city develops and prospers. Rather than mislead the public about the effectiveness of the District’s most valuable local tool for creating affordable homes, D.C. Councilmembers should increase investment in the trust fund to help reduce the equity gap and bring about some justice—through housing—for longtime D.C. residents.

Jubilee’s final word on the trust fund differs substantially from the audit’s conclusion. We believe the trust fund deserves additional investment in both its administration and level of funding. The rapidly escalating gentrification of the District makes the need for highly affordable homes—and thus the need for the Housing Production Trust Fund—greater now than ever.