Tweet of the Day courtesy of @TheAdvoc8te
It just so happens that my Tweet of the Day happens to come from myself. Don't worry, it was purely accidental.
This tweet -- one that I made during a mega thread on Saturday (in which I just went HAM for about 2 hours about flawed housing policies east of the river) gets to the heart and the soul of my frustration and fear. Not just about the lack of overall significant economic development east of the river (and the mass shutting out of those higher incomes that can get us there), but the many, many, many efforts to keep the Ward 7 and Ward 8 economy superficially depressed, the land cheap, and the residents desperate for any hope for change --- regardless of how short-sighted.
If west of the river didn't have east of the river as an option to export the majority of D.C.'s (west of the river) low-income and homeless, what would they do to solve this problem?
At the risk of sounding like a broken record I have to repeat:
West of the River DC has an "affordable"(and low-income) housing crisis.
East of the River DC has an employment and economic development crisis. All the low-income and subsidized housing in the world isn't going to solve the bigger issue - people who live here need jobs located here. So why are we mass importing more unemployed (and underemployed) people when there are not enough businesses now to employ the unemployed and underemployed residents we already have?
IT IS TIME TO CHANGE THE NARRATIVE.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record I have to repeat:
West of the River DC has an "affordable"(and low-income) housing crisis.
East of the River DC has an employment and economic development crisis. All the low-income and subsidized housing in the world isn't going to solve the bigger issue - people who live here need jobs located here. So why are we mass importing more unemployed (and underemployed) people when there are not enough businesses now to employ the unemployed and underemployed residents we already have?
IT IS TIME TO CHANGE THE NARRATIVE.
What would it take for that DC (west of the river) to make our DC (east of the river) a real priority and not just the recipients of flawed policy and sound bites?
