This Anacostia nonprofit is fighting displacement east of the river

By Eliana Perozo

Soon after purchasing a home in Anacostia, Meche Martinez was invited to a small gathering to talk about a development project that her neighbors feared would price them out.

More than a decade later, Martinez works as an engagement and capacity building manager at Douglass Community Land Trust, an organization born from those residents’ efforts to ensure D.C.’s first elevated public park would actually benefit existing residents and businesses.

The park’s leadership began having community-led conversations which resulted in an Equitable Development Plan that’s been updated twice. After 10 years, some 30 permits and more than 1,000 stakeholder meetings, construction is set to begin on the bridge next year.

Next City spoke to Martinez about Douglass Community Land Trust’s work supporting equitable development in Anacostia as well as its pay-it-forward home ownership program. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about Douglass CLT. How did Douglass CLT get started and how did you become involved?

Before joining the staff at Douglass Community Land Trust, I was a member of the Ward 8 community, east of the Anacostia River. I’m in the neighborhood just outside of historic Anacostia called Hillsdale. A neighbor invited me to have a conversation about the community land trust. I had no idea what that was, but I said sure. I went to a meeting and learned more about it. I felt horrible that, as a realtor, I had no idea what a CLT was. If this is a way to own land, own property, how did I not know about it?

There was word about a new development project happening called 11th Street Bridge Park. Across the Anacostia River, you have the side that I live on, east of the river. Then you have west of the river, which includes neighborhoods like Navy Yard. The 11th Street Bridge Park is a pedestrian bridge that will cross the river, and the idea is that it will literally and figuratively connect both sides of the river, thus connecting the city.

People were comparing this project to the High Line in New York. What happened when the High Line came to New York? Prices increased, and people were displaced from their homes, so the neighborhood was concerned. There was the fear of displacement. There was the fear that housing prices would increase even more than they already had, and that people would have to leave the neighborhood that they loved so much.

People who lived east of the river were terrified of what was to come, while people west of the river were excited about the possibility of a new bridge, a place for their kids to play. People east of the river were not only concerned that they may not be able to stay in their homes. But they were also feeling very put out — like, why wasn’t this done before?

So the Bridge Park started having community conversations. One of the things they did really well was making sure that there was access to meetings after working hours. They were providing meals and childcare during the meetings. So often, having small children or being hungry and tired after a day at work can be barriers to attending meetings like this.

They hosted a series of meetings, and they asked the community: What would make you feel better about this? The idea that came up was a community land trust.

We started having conversations to discuss what a community land trust was and what it would mean specifically for this area and for this city. From there, the community advisory board was formed, which is when I was first invited to join as someone who lives in the community and then as an industry expert.

We started having meetings, kind of setting up the framework for the organization. What does this look like? What does this mean? Who benefits from this? What is our structure? What are our bylaws and corporation documents? So we did all of that. We began as the community advisory board, and then we became a fully incorporated 501(c)(3) known as Douglass CLT. The Bridge Park incubated us and helped us stand up. Now we are a fully functioning 501(c)(3) able to stand alone.

How is Douglass CLT showing up in the fight against housing displacement?

We are a membership-based organization. We acquire different types of housing units or land for the sake of creating and preserving permanently affordable housing.

Some of our limited equity co-ops, we hold affordability covenants from the city for those buildings, which will keep those affordable not just for the term that one household is in there, but for the next, and the next, and the next. That is done by setting resale formulas. If somebody is to sell the unit, there’s a specific formula they would use to be able to sell it to somebody who can also afford it and benefit from its permanent affordability.

As an organization, we aim to serve between 30% and 80% area median income, depending on where the unit is, how it’s priced or [what] the ownership structure is. That lets us know that those are the people with the greatest need. Depending on the building, this also shows that they do have the ability to pay. Because for the financial health of the building, carrying charges or rent still needs to be paid. So we want to be sure that those are set at a reasonably affordable price.

What is affordability? Affordable to who? How do you keep it affordable? Those are all conversations where, when we were first forming as a board, we were even so worked up about it. Some of us were yelling and over-talking each other and just trying to get to the root of how we set our structure so that what we set in place now will still be affordable for the next household and the next household as things change.

What is your organization’s model for combating displacement?

We have started what we call a pay-it-forward home ownership program. There are two instances where people within the city — both white families — have come to us and said, “Hey, I have a house my family has outgrown. We’re ready to sell it, and we know that on the open market, we can sell our home for significantly more than we purchased it for. But that likely prices out somebody who’s already in the city … and we don’t want to contribute to displacement.”

So they sold it to us for less than they could have sold it for on the open market. In one case, it was $200,000 less; in another case, it was $300,000 less. One of the households bought their home in the early ‘90s. What they paid for it was considered significantly lower than what we paid. They still get tax benefits. They still profited, but not as much as they would have if they had sold for the full assessed value.

We then sell [those homes] to a household that’s at 80% AMI or below. One we were able to sell was worth $800,000. We sold it to a household for $330,000, which is crazy. It was a move-in ready home in a highly sought-after neighborhood, and it gave that family stability. A year later, we were catching up and the owner said, after a lifetime of not having control of their household or what happened inside their household, they finally did. They were able to buy their children a cat and to live their life freely.

How many families have you all been able to house?

We have just over 260 units of housing. That’s spread out across the rentals, the limited equity co-ops and the single-family homes. We have a partnership with Habitat for Humanity. There are eight homes that sold at the beginning of this year, which they built, and we contributed financially to bring down the affordability for the prospective households. (Editor’s note: Find the CLT’s available housing opportunities here.)

We also provide what’s called ongoing stewardship, which means we consider ourselves permanent partners. If the homeowner has an issue, they have a question, they want to put a fence up and they don’t know who to call, or they have a bulk trash pickup and they’re not sure what to do, we provide that additional help and resource.

We also have a mechanism where they pay a land lease fee of $25 a month. The land lease is what defines the relationship between the homeowner and us as a community land trust that lays out our responsibilities, their responsibilities and what our relationship looks like. Our land leases are 99 years, and they’re renewable and inheritable, so the homeowner can will the home to an heir.

When they pay that fee, they pay it with their mortgage, so if they miss that payment, we’re able to call and say, “Hey, is everything okay? Are you good? What’s going on?” That helps us to step in and assist in the case of foreclosure or anything getting worse.

What are the biggest challenges you all have faced in this work?

A challenge we face is definitely a lack of awareness or education around community land trusts, what they are, what they mean and how they operate. It leads to a group of people who are not interested because they don’t know what a CLT is.

You have people saying, “No, I don’t think that’s for me” — which is fine. We acknowledge that it’s not a model that works for everybody, but I think the lack of education and awareness is a challenge.

This generation has been taught that the American Dream needs to look a certain way, that you need to be successful. You buy all the real estate you can for as low as you can and sell it for as high as you can. You need to flip houses. You need to do Airbnb. Real estate is the only way you can gain big chunks of financial wealth.

That has a lot of people thinking about wealth-building in just that way.

What the CLT offers is still wealth-building, but incrementally and in a different way. So you’re still building wealth, you’re still gaining equity. You’re also gaining equity in your decision-making power as a community land trust. The community owns our assets and our community-owned assets, so you’re at the table making decisions for you, for your community members, and you’re gaining equity.

As you’re paying your mortgage, you’re getting equity in your property, or as you’re paying affordable rent, you’re able to pay the other bills you have and save money because you’re not rent-burdened. I think that’s missed, because the perception is widely that if you’re not selling for over and beyond, then there’s no success for you.

What guidance would you give to other organizations that are thinking of starting this work? Are there any particular resources you would encourage others to reference?

My biggest advice is to listen to your community. We call it The Big C. Having the buy-in from your community is huge — being able to do the meetings, explaining what you’re trying to accomplish, how you’re trying to accomplish it, and also finding the community members who believe in what you’re doing and asking them to help explain it.

If it’s a new idea, or a new idea to a resident, they may instantly be unsure, especially if they’re not familiar with who you are. Investing in educating the community members who then understand and appreciate it can help you, and can go a long way. Also, I’d suggest building relationships with the municipality that you’re in.

If you were starting over, what would you do differently, knowing what you know now?

I don’t know that I would do anything differently, because we learned from our stumbles and missteps and needed to experience them to understand where to take the organization. We were a group of neighbors who came together and were very passionate about something. I think we needed to make any kind of mistake that we made. Redirection needed to happen for the organization to be able to grow.

Talk to me specifically about why fighting displacement matters in housing.

The limited equity co-ops — there’s three in our portfolio, and they were rental buildings where the landlord was selling the building. In D.C., we have TOPA, the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. So they exercise their TOPA rights, formed a tenant association, purchased the building from the landlord and became a co-op.

Had they not done that, you would have had those buildings emptied out. Often when a developer buys a building like that, they’re looking to turn it into condos or remodel the units and rent them for much higher. So what they did is they prevented their own displacement. They are buildings that are largely Black and Brown, and big immigrant communities, and so they were able to stay.

It’s not just [a matter of] where are you going to live, where are you going to sleep at night. It also affects your commute to work. It affects where your children go to school. It’s your safety, it’s your mental health. So preventing displacement enables these residents to continue to live their lives the way that they have been, until prices increased, until people are wanting to come in and push them out.

They are able to stand strong, stay together. It also keeps the community together — one building in particular, one of the residents lived with her family until she had enough money to purchase a unit in the building, so now she’s just on a different floor.