This shelter doesn’t sound spectacular, but the space provided opportunities for the 239 families living there to have fun activities that won’t be possible elsewhere. Splinter’s Emma Roller:
…over the past seven years, the families and organizations that operate within the shelter have created a makeshift community of their own. This is what happens when poor families living on public land are pushed out the back door, while powerful corporate interests are invited in for dinner.
It is being bulldozed to make room for their pitch to Amazon and luxury condo developers:
One of the city’s proposed sites for Amazon’s new headquarters is in the Capitol Hill East neighborhood—directly on top of where D.C. General stands today. “Hill East, a quiet, traditional rowhouse community, sits at the eastern edge of the District, walkable to some of the most exciting and historic neighborhoods in the area,” the Obviously DC website reads.
[…]
In April, the families at D.C. General noticed that signs had been put up along the fence bordering the shelter complex. The signs were from three construction and development companies, promoting their work on the site’s demolition and remodeling. One of the posters showed a slick mock-up of what the new site would look like, with crisp brick buildings, wide boulevards, a bike share station, and a fountain. None of the construction companies returned requests for comment, but one of them, McCullough Construction LLC, touts itself on its website as being “synonymous with luxury condos.”
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