A Walk With: Duane Gautier, Director of ARCH Development, Anacostia - Housing Complex - Washington City Paper
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| Duane Gautier, ARCH Development Corporation |
Posted by Lydia DePillis on Oct. 12, 2010 at 11:44 am
Coming soon: A sit-down cafe! (Lydia DePillis)
Last week, we started a series of walking tours with folks in the know in their neighborhoods. Who else would be interesting? Let me know.
When Duane Gautier first came to Anacostia from his native New York City, to intern for a congressman in 1961, the neighborhood was thriving: Most every shopfront filled, and owner-occupied.
When he returned in the early 1980s to work for Pepco, that healthy bloom had wilted. The riots had driven out much of the neighborhood’s economic base, and jobs were as scarce as the small businesses that once supplied them.
Since then, Gautier has been working to build back Anacostia’s economic infrastructure, starting ARCH Development Corporation in 1983 with startup funds from Pepco to train area residents in energy efficiency work (green jobs before they were fashionable). Over three decades now, the small nonprofit has devoted itself to housing, job training, and small-scale business development. Gautier’s latest project: Revamping storefronts on Martin Luther King Avenue and Good Hope Road, with grants from the Department of Housing and Community Development, which sits smack at the intersection of those two faded commercial avenues.
Continue reading the article HERE !
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