Community Festival This Saturday!

Attention Ivy City & Trinidad Residents: 

The National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) and the DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) would like to thank you for your involvement in the Ivy City & Trinidad Neighborhood Stabilization Program. Through your participation in three community meetings, six focus groups and a workforce skills survey that received nearly 700 responses, you have shown your commitment to the spirited, thriving community you call home. Help us celebrate this commitment through a day of volunteering, resource sharing,  food and entertainment.

The “Celebrate Ivy City & Trinidad” community festival will start with a volunteer event organized by DC Cares, the Trinidad Neighborhood Association and ANC Commissioner Tina Laskaris. The event will start at 10:00AM on the corner of Bladensburg Road and Levis Street and will provide participants with an opportunity to remove trash from Bladensburg Road and help improve a local storefront. Those interested in volunteering should contact Andrea Sledd of Greater DC Cares at (202) 777-4453. All necessary equipment will be provided on site and the first 25 volunteers will receive a free t-shirt.

The celebration will continue at the Trinidad Recreation Center, located at 1310 Childress Street, NE,  where food will be provided by Ivy City and Trinidad’s own Sugar: Upscale Soul Food and the Capitol City Diner. The event will feature live DJ entertainment. Representatives from local nonprofit housing developers, workforce training programs and NCRC’s small business and housing counselor teams will be on site to provide information related to their services. 

Festival details are included in the attached flyer. Please share this information with your neighbors. We hope to see you on Saturday!

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Next Community Meeting – June 11th

NCRC, with project partners, will present final recommendations related to housing, commercial development and community greening on June 11th from 10:00AM to Noon at the Joseph Cole Recreation Center – 1200 Morse Street, NE.

Please attend! This will be the last opportunity for community residents to provide meaningful input related to recommendations that will inform future city investments!

The presentation will also include a presentation of photo reimaging work and a proposed neighborhood marketing and branding strategy.

We hope to see you there!

April 30th Community Meeting

Ivy City & Trinidad residents gathered in the gym of the Trinidad Recreation Center on Saturday, April 30th from 1:00PM to 3:00PM. Representative from DHCD and NCRC gave a brief presentation of initiative goals and provided an overview of information gathered through the community engagement process to date. Residents then participated in an open house where they were free to talk with project partners and provide input on maps and comment boards organized according to the three main project goals: increased access to decent, affordable housing; increased commercial development and employment opportunities and a comprehensive vision for community redevelopment.

A summary of the information collected on comment boards at the April 30th community meeting is available here.

Photos from this and other community meetings are available here.

Community Greening Focus Group

The Ivy City & Trinidad Community Greening Focus Group was held on Wednesday, April 20th from 6:00PM to 8:00PM at the Trinidad Recreation Center. Residents discussed ways to address littering, including the possibility of employing neighborhood youth through the District Department of the Environment (DDOE). Those in attendance expressed an interest in training programs that would empower residents to make green upgrades and weatherization improvements to their homes. Residents also discussed the possibility of partnering with Casey Trees to organize a neighborhood tree planting event.

Redevelopment Perspectives Focus Group

The fifth Ivy City & Trinidad Neighborhood Stabilization Initiative focus group was held on Wednesday, April 6th. The meeting took place between 6:00PM and 8:00 PM at the Trinidad Recreation Center in Trinidad. The focus group included a discussion of resident perspectives on general redevelopment trends in the Ivy City & Trinidad communities. Issues brought up in the discussion included access to affordable child care, a need for more youth activities, neighborhood beatification, incidents of police harassment and access to healthy food.

Commercial and Business Development Focus Group

The commercial and business development focus group was held on March 30^th at the Trinidad Recreation Center. The meeting was attended by 32 local residents who shared their thoughts about existing businesses in their neighborhoods. Issues brought up in the discussion included the fact that the increased use of commercial space for bars and entertainment venues along H Street has crowded out neighborhood-serving retailers. Focus group attendees also commented that employees of local businesses often make shoppers feel uncomfortable by being overly suspect of shoplifters. Residents also explained that they do not shop in the neighborhood because higher quality goods and services are available in Virginia and Maryland shopping centers.

Social Conditions and Neighborhood Services Focus Group

The third Ivy City & Trinidad resident focus group was held on March 23^rd at the Trinidad Recreation Center. The discussion focused on a wide range of issues, including police and fire protection, education and access to healthy foods. Throughout the evening, focus group participants expressed frustration with the accountability of area police officers. However, residents seemed relatively pleased with local fire and ambulatory services. Participants also complimented area schools, but expressed concerns that area youth do not have enough access to structured after school activities. Access to local, affordable daycare was also mentioned as a challenge.

Housing Focus Group

A housing focus group was held from 6:00PM to 8:00PM on Wednesday, March 16th, in a classroom at Gallaudet University. Throughout the evening, participants were prompted to provide their thoughts on barriers to homeownership, available housing and homeownership assistance programs and alternative homeownership models. Feedback from focus group participants clearly indicated that several rental housing units within the Ivy City and Trinidad community are in poor condition. While some participants were eagerly preparing to purchase a home, others were skeptical. Steady employment was expressed as a common barrier to homeownership. Several participants also expressed frustration with the way information on housing programs and projects is shared with local residents.

A short mapping exercise was included as part of the housing focus group to gauge the perception of safety in locations thoughout the Ivy City and Trinidad Neighborhoods. Residents were asked to place green dots on locations where they feel comfortable leaving youth unsupervised, yellow dots on locations where they feel relatively safe, but youth should be supervised, and red dots on locations they themselves do not feel safe. The results of this exercise can be viewed here.

Workforce Development Focus Group

The first resident focus group was held Wednesday, March 9th at Gallaudet University and included a discussion of workforce development issues. The focus group, which had thirteen participants, included discussions on residents’ current employment status, barriers to employment, job training programs, and other resources available to help residents train for and obtain employment or to help them through unemployment. Themes arose out of the discussion, including the obstacles faced by those with a criminal record, the experience of older adults trying to find new employment, requirements for recognized certification regardless of on-the-job training experience, and the ineffectiveness of existing training programs and resources.

Detailed notes from the Workforce Development Focus Group are available here.

Reimaging Ivy City & Trinidad

Steve Price was one of the expert partners introduced at the February 26th meeting. Mr. Price has been engaged to “reimage” Ivy City & Trinidad to help local residents visualize the future of their communities. To complete this work, Mr. Price spent a few days touring the neighborhoods and photographing sites that residents identified as potential opportunities for community revitalization. Using these base photographs, Mr. Price will use computer software to show how small improvements and larger investments can help transform the neighborhoods.

For more information and examples of Mr. Price’s work, please visit his website here.

To view the Ivy City & Trinidad sites Mr. Price photographed, please click here. Four of these photos will be selected for reimaging.