The Washington Peace Letter is published monthly for the social justice community of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. Its purpose is to support local, national and international struggles against oppression. It seeks to present a radical analysis of current events, covering information not readily available in the corporate media.

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It is Thursday evening. A woman calls Homes Not Jails (HNJ) after seeing a notice on a lamppost about a demonstration. "I wanted to ask about the flyer for squatter's rights," she says. She explains that her family has been homeless for a while, in and out of shelters that have not helped, and that now she and her partner live temporarily with a friend, while their children reside in another house. They want to live under the same roof. "I can't stay here much longer, really," she says. "I keep seeing all these abandoned buildings around. Is it illegal to live in one of them?"

Her situation, unfortunately, is common in D.C., where 18,000 families are on the waiting list for section 8 housing and 10,000 families are on the waiting list for public housing, according to the Housing Authority. Homeless families wait six months or more for shelter. Service agencies turn away battered women in need of emergency housing because there is none available. At the same time the Department of Housing and Community Development reports that 29,000 units of housing lie vacant in D.C.

Despite the city's desperate need for housing, the mayor is imposing cuts to emergency shelter for FY 2001. Meanwhile the mayor has yet to lift the pending evictions of buildings suddenly deemed "hazardous" in Columbia Heights and Shaw, which are neighborhoods facing rising property rates and widespread gentrification. There is no plan to place these tenants in permanent, affordable housing if they are evicted. If anyone chooses to live in one of D.C.'s 29,000 vacant units of housing, they may soon face stiffer laws against squatting, if Bill 13-558 is passed by the city council. HNJ feels that this bill, which was introduced at the request of Mayor Williams, criminalizes poor people and the homeless at a time when D.C.'s housing policy leaves much to be desired.

On June 14, the Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Committee held a hearing on the bill, as well as on several other bills affecting tenants' rights. HNJ testified at the hearing and erected a cardboard "Hooverville" on the sidewalk in front of the City Council building. The crude painted boxes posed a simple question to the city: Where does the government intend for people to live when it won't meet the city's housing needs and if it criminalizes people who house themselves in vacant buildings?

Homes Not Jails is an all-volunteer, nation-wide, direct action housing movement. The D.C. chapter formed in the spirit of an April 15 housing takeover at 1828 9th St. NW. About forty activists occupied the building and displayed a banner that read "Stop the Evictions, Housing for All." Nine were arrested, and the building, which is clean, perfectly stable, and which had running water and electricity, was resealed. It remains vacant today.

Homes not Jails holds that housing is a basic human right. As the need for housing continues to go unmet in D.C., we will take what we need. As a group, we occupy and repair abandoned buildings to create housing and to bring attention to failing city housing policy. We meet on Sunday at 5 p.m. in Franklin Park at 14th and K Sts. NW. All are welcome. For more info., please call 202-297-4430, or write to homesnotjailsdc@yahoo.com.

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