Where crack once reigned, Shaw gentrification worries longtime residents

By Allison Desy and Karissa Waddick

Billy Hart, 72, pointed a crooked finger toward his house down S Street NW.

For the majority of his 50 years in Shaw, Hart often awoke to the sound of gunshots. Drug deals occurred daily on the corner near New Community Church.

“But it’s changed now. It was just all blacks here and no whites,” Hart said.

Now, restaurants boasting locally sourced beer and bakeries selling gourmet blueberry streusel muffins populate the 7th Street corridor, the same area where Hart use to buy crack.

Soaring home prices since 2000 have forced out long-time residents and business owners who cannot afford rent and have ushered in a new era for wealthier D.C. transplants.

“You know, Shaw is a little dicey,” said Mel Hilbrun, 54, a construction developer in the area, who has had valuables including a bike and a computer, stolen from him in the neighborhood.

Hilbrun said that he welcomes the development and changes to the “depressed” Washington, D.C. neighborhood, and that the improvements to schools, hospitals, and restaurants bolster the area.

According to a Manna, Inc. Affordable Housing Report, D.C. remains the second most gentrified city in the United States, only after Portland, Oregon.

Housing prices in D.C. have been steadily increasing in the district over the past few decades, tripling between 2000 and 2013. Though in few places are these changes as evident as they are in Shaw.

Average housing cost in D.C. as compared to average housing cost in the Shaw neighborhood from 2012 to 2017.

In 2010, the average house in Shaw cost $462,000. Seven years later in 2017, the median home price hit $735,000, nearly doubled in less than a decade, based on Housing Data from the real estate database, Zillow.

Reverend Jim Dickerson, the CEO of Manna and New Community Church pastor, dedicated his life’s work to creating and obtaining affordable housing for low and middle-income D.C. residents.

“Our dream is to keep this place and not let the diversity slip away racially or culturally,” said Dickerson at a recent advisory neighborhood meeting in Shaw where he petitioned for a new affordable housing development.

Hart was in and out of jail for decades. He tried multiple times to get clean and escape the cycle of addiction without success.

One afternoon in 1990, Hart made his way over to Sherman Avenue to pay a visit to his crack dealer.

That is when Hart said he hit rock bottom. Later that afternoon, he checked himself into a final treatment program at D.C. General Hospital. He has been clean for 27 years.

According to Hart, Dickerson helped him find housing in Shaw after exiting the drug program. For almost a decade, Hart lived in the single-occupancy room, where he spent time saving money and cleaning up his credit through programs with Manna.

“It’s through Manna. This organization helped me get that house. And since then, I’ve been in this neighborhood,” said Hart.

Billy Hart, 72, standing next to a “Take Back the City” sign at Manna, Inc. headquarters at New Community Church on S Street.

Seventeen years later, Hart said he fears that his house will soon be taken away from him. In recent weeks, developers have been knocking on his door, pressuring him to sell.

It’s the same developers claiming they are helping Hart that have been expanding the area for decades.

Long-time business owners in Shaw have experienced similar circumstances.

Wanda’s on 7th hair salon and an Ethiopian corner store are some of the only black-owned business left in the neighborhood, Hart said.

“He’s gonna be out soon because they put so much pressure on him to sell,” said Hart with regards to the Ethiopian store owner.

Uprising Muffin Company is one of the newer businesses in the neighborhood. The cafe, which opened four years ago, sits on 7th street among a new Solid Core exercise boutique, several abandoned storefronts and a restaurant advertising sustainable seafood and craft beer.

Drift restaurant on 7th Street NW is right around the corner from Uprising Muffin Company.

Kwanza Shortr, a 26-year-old manager of Uprising, has lived in Shaw her entire life. According to Shortr, gentrification in Shaw has been a long time coming, but has accelerated in recent years. She said that as a child, her mother would tell her that change was coming, but she never imagined it would be like this.

As a black woman, Shortr increasingly began to feel like an outsider in her own neighborhood.

“It’s walking around and having people look at you like you don’t belong here,” Shortr said.

At one time in Shaw, Hart could reach out of his window and be handed a bottle of Wild Irish Rose. That was back when there were more liquor stores than schools.

Several of Hart’s friends that did not die from drug addiction have been pushed out of the Shaw neighborhood throughout the decades as a result of the soaring rent prices.

According to Hart, there as few as seven black families left in his neighborhood.

“Every house you see here once belonged to black people,” said Hart.