For people experiencing homelessness, it’s not only finding a bed for the night that poses a challenge: finding a safe place to spend time during the day can feel nearly impossible, especially as D.C. implements new anti-loitering laws. In the Park View neighborhood, Bruce Monroe Park serves not only as one of the only green spaces; it’s one of the few places unhoused or housing-insecure people can spend extended time.
A proposal to develop most of the park into 462 housing units, while leaving roughly a third of the lot as parkland, was recently approved after a seven-year-long court battle. Ward 1 Councilmember Brianne Nadeau says the plan will create vital and affordable housing while preserving green space, and phase two of the plan would include creating a new park in the neighborhood. According to her office, 147 of the new units would be public housing and 155 would be Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Units. Community members who oppose the plans, however, worry they’re losing a vital community space.
Like many neighborhoods in D.C., Park View is growing increasingly white as rising housing costs, among other factors, push many longtime Black residents out. While new housing could help people stay in the neighborhood, the redevelopment will also impact one of the neighborhood’s few remaining places where unhoused people can spend their time.
HumanitiesDC’s community journalist Holly Harris spent time with a few of the park’s housing-insecure visitors to better understand what the space means to them and what they think should become of it. Their answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Redz
Redz (who only goes by his nickname) has lived in the Park View neighborhood since 1963 and is currently staying at his cousin’s house. He was eager to weigh in on the importance of the park.
[The park] brings the community together, that’s the thing. Got a lot of people that love this park. They were born and raised here and they’re still here, doing things. The other day they had a festival up here. I heard about it and I happened to walk on, and it was so beautiful. You got people come up here and help other people. People come up here feeding people, because people need people, and that’s what they need to realize. You take this park away, what you think is gonna happen? Where the dogs gonna go at? Where these people gonna have to exercise?
Redz was briefly distracted by a man named Cory, who was loudly exclaiming to himself.
Every day you come to this park, and you hear guys like him talking [referencing Cory]. But that’s alright. Nobody’s getting hurt, nobody’s shooting and stuff. So really that’s pretty safe compared to a lot of other parks. Kids go out and play and they could be in danger, but they don’t have any issues up here. It’s kinda tough down here [in D.C.] because we got a lot of violence down here, but this park aids the younger kids.
Michael McKay
McKay is originally from Maryland but was fostered by a family in D.C., where he lived until he aged out of the child welfare system. He’d been unhoused for a month when Street Sense spoke to him in June, spending most of his time in Park View. While he worries about the impact of the park’s development on the neighborhood’s unhoused, he doesn’t think it will be all negative.
It’s one of the few places on Georgia Avenue where you could go and you’re not loitering.
I feel like [removing the park] would drive up crime because people can’t stand in one place, you can’t just chill. You can’t just stay in one place and do nothing, you know, if you don’t have anything really positive to do? Yeah, I guess negative would be the alternative.
A couple minutes ago, two police officers came up, like drove up on us for no reason at all. I think it’ll probably just increase their presence. There’ll be a whole lot of increased police presence to clean it up. And you know, maybe it’s for the good. Maybe it’ll push brothers inside the park to get it together a little.
Teaune Williams
Williams currently resides with his wife in Southeast D.C. by way of a housing voucher, but he enjoys visiting the park to fellowship with his peers, which is part of why he believes this space is important.
Not everybody know what they want to do inside of a day, not everybody knows who their friends are. So sometimes people just kind of want to be around people but not actually talk.
Recently, they just got a grill and everything, and they was grilling out here, and everybody kind of put in, like, everybody who had food stamps went and got them something to put onto that grill. And I thought that was beautiful. Like, these are more family than your family.
I think that it’s just more of like, we’ve known each other. These people have been in addiction, and out of addiction, you get what I’m saying, so they became family. I’m talking about anybody that came inside that park that day. They was giving out hamburgers and hot dogs too. They didn’t care who you was.
This story was produced through HumanitiesDC’s Community Journalism Program.
