By Rachel M. Cohen, Washington City Paper
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This recommendation is reinforced by a separate planning process, conducted by the city, to certify that it is in compliance with federal civil rights law. Released in late September, the city’s new draft Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice includes findings such as: Many historically black D.C. neighborhoods have become increasingly white, and zoning and land costs hinder affordable housing in Wards 2 and 3. (Ward 3 was once home to a thriving middle-class black community—one that fought for decades for its right to stay.)
“We have all these conversations about cost-pressures, but a fair housing lens is so rarely applied,” says Megan Haberle, the deputy director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, which the city hired to conduct the analysis along with the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
