Save Museum Square: Mayor Bowser, Stop the displacement in DC Chinatown NOW!

Mayor Muriel Bowser, DC Council, Downtown Task Force, DowntownDC BID

**This sign-on letter has been delivered but please continue to sign, and contact museumsquareta@gmail.com for organizational connections. Visit www.linktr.ee/museumsquaresolidarity for more information and to get involved**

From Marbury Plaza to Museum Square, low-income residents of color are fighting for the right to live in Washington, DC: one of the fastest gentrifying cities in America (1).

Today, there are fewer than 300 Chinese Americans left living in DC Chinatown–largely centered in Wah Luck House and Museum Square Apartments. Between 1990 and 2020, DC Chinatown experienced one of the largest rates of decrease in AAPI populations among major Chinatowns nationwide (2). What used to be a bustling neighborhood filled with businesses, restaurants, and dynamic cultural life, has been reduced to a small community struggling to protect its future.

As the Mayor’s new Downtown Task Force assembles to support the “comeback” of Chinatown/Gallery Place, the Chinatown community is on the brink of erasure. A 9-story luxury hotel development, pending final approvals, would displace and redevelop the last contiguous row of long-time Chinese small businesses and historic rowhouses on the 500 block of H Street (3) Home to many of the remaining residents of Chinatown, Museum Square Apartments, located at 401 K St. NW, continues to fight for preservation of their homes. All the while, approximately 20% of downtown offices and 6% of rental units remain vacant amid an ongoing affordable housing and homelessness crisis (4).

从玛布里广场到博物馆广场，少数族裔且低收入居民正在为在华盛顿特区生活的权利而战：这是美国其中一座富有阶级化变迁最快的城市之一。

如今，在DC唐人街仅剩下不到300名华裔美籍人士，并主要集中在华福大厦和博物馆广场公寓。在1990年到2020年期间，DC唐人街经历了全美主要唐人街中亚裔人口减少最为显著的时期。这里曾经是一个充满小企业、餐馆和充满文化活力及生活的繁华社区，如今已经变成一个求生都艰难的小社区。

随着市长的新市区任务组成立，支持唐人街/画廊地区的“复苏”，唐人街社区正处于濒临灭绝的边缘。一座即将开始建设的9层豪华酒店，正等待最终批准，其将取代并重新开发H街500号上最后一排的老字号华人小商业店家和历史悠久的老屋群，作为唐人街仅余的居民家园，博物馆广场公寓继续为保护他们的家而奋斗。在此同时，虽仍约有20%的市区办公室和6%的租赁单位依然空置着，却认多数的亚裔仍处在寻找适合的租房或是无家可归危机中。


Petition by
Museum Square Tenants Association
Museum Square Tenants Association
Washington, District of Columbia

To: Mayor Muriel Bowser, DC Council, Downtown Task Force, DowntownDC BID
From: [Your Name]

CC: DC Council, Downtown/Chinatown Taskforce, Downtown DC BID

We the residents of Museum Square have recently eclipsed a full decade of organizing against displacement by our landlord, Bush Companies (5). After facing our landlord’s opt-out of its Section 8 affordability contract, legal battles around demolition plans and violations of our Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) rights, and waves of other displacement tactics, our once fully-occupied 302 unit building now sits more than 75% vacant.

Our Tenants Association has connected with developers who can purchase the property around market value, and ensure the preservation of 130 affordable units for existing residents and residents who were displaced. However, Bush refuses to sell. As Bush Companies plays their strategy of waiting the tenants out in order to maximize their profits (6), the remaining 70 residents - Black and Asian seniors and immigrant families with young children – continue to face deteriorating conditions, safety concerns, and ongoing pressures to move. All four passenger elevators in the building were broken down for a week in late November. Language access is ignored; tenants with limited English proficiency are face many extra barriers to communicating with management.

We do not need more inequitable development. We do not need more task forces, steering committees, or working groups that exclude our voices and ignore the basic needs of our communities. We need support to save our homes.

What We Need

The new Downtown Taskforce does not address the issues facing long-term, working class communities in Chinatown/Gallery Place, nor include any resident representatives. We are calling on the Mayor, our councilmembers, and the DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) for immediate public commitments to:

1. Prioritize racial equity and the preservation of Chinatown: protect the ability of working class, low-income resident communities to remain in the community.
2. Prevent displacement by keeping affordable housing in downtown: Museum Square needs tangible support from the city to preserve affordable housing at the property. A sustainable and just future in downtown means the city must take action to stabilize existing affordable housing, and create more of it.
3. Holding Bush Companies and other landlords accountable for substandard conditions and displacing tenants.
4. Come meet with the residents of Museum Square and Chinatown to address our concerns at a public town hall.

Without these commitments, any efforts by the city to “revitalize” Chinatown will only serve to appropriate and profit off our community and heritage, and facilitate further displacement of its long term residents and their vital contributions to Washington DC.

We are still here and will not be moved!

我们需要什么

随着新市区任务组的成立，我们呼吁市长、市议会成员、邻里委员会和DowntownDC商务改善区（BID）立即公开承诺：

1. 优先考虑种族公平和保护唐人街：保护工薪阶层、低收入居民在社区中的居住能力。
2. 通过市府保留廉宜租房来防止驱离：博物馆广场需要市府的切实支持，以保护和稳定该物业的廉宜租房。持续公正的未来意味着市府必须采取行动来稳定和创造更多的廉宜租房。
3. 追究Bush Companies和其他房东以低劣条件租房给房客并驱离租户的责任。
4. 参加社区市政厅会议，与唐人街居民会面并解决我们的需求。

如果没有这些承诺，市区对“振兴”唐人街的任何努力都只是侵占并从我们的社区遗留文化中获利，且促使其长期居民进一步的被驱逐。

我们仍然在这里，拒绝被迁移。

SIGNED:

Museum Square Tenants Association
博物馆广场租户协会

Organizations:

411 Collective
ACE Collaborative
African Communities Together
Asian & Pacific Islander Queers United for Action DC (AQUA)
Asian Americans United
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance-DC
APIA in Historic Preservation (APIAHiP)
Asian American LEAD
Asian Pacific American Legal Resource Center
Baldwin House
Bread for the City
Chinatown Art Studio
Chinese Community Church
District of Columbia Area Tenant Association Consortium (DCATAC)
Devoncort Tenants Association
DC 4 Reasonable Development
DC Ward 2 Mutual Aid
GabrielaDC
Good Trouble Coop
EmpowerDC
Fair Budget Coalition
Hamkae Center
Hampton Tenants Association
Katarungan
Legal Aid DC
Legal Counsel for the Elderly
Metro DC DSA
National CAPACD
Party for Socialism and Liberation DC
People Power Action
Power of 10 Initiative
Samasama
Sedgewick Gardens Tenants Association
SW Action
Viet Place Collective
Wah Luck House Tenants Association
Wardman Hotel Strategy Team

+80 written individual signatures

To sign on as an organization, please email museumsquareta@gmail.com

References

(1) Britt Dillman. “D.C’s Rapid Gentrification Eliminating Affordable Housing and Causing Displacement of Black Residents Can Be Resolved through Social Housing – American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & The Law.” http://jgspl.org/d-cs-rapid-gentrification-eliminating-affordable-housing-and-causing-displacement-of-black-residents-can-be-resolved-through-social-housing

(2) Chen, S., Dickey, M. R., & Ortiz, K. Chinatowns in America resist gentrification attempts. Axios. https://www.axios.com/2023/03/30/chinatowns-america-gentrification-immigrants

(3) 85-unit hybrid lodging development pitched for middle of chinatown. UrbanTurf. (2023, November 20). https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/85-unit_hybrid_lodging_development_pitched_for_middle_of_chinatown/21709

(4) DowntownDC. (2022). (rep.). DowntownDC Economy Update: Winter 2022. from https://www.downtowndc.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/DowntownDC-BID-2022-Winter-Update-FINAL.pdf

(5) Hackman, R. (2017, January 3). “here until they take me out”: DC tenants use the law to fight gentrification. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/03/gentrification-washington-dc-housing-topa-right-to-buy

(6) Wiener, A. (2020, September 26). Developer plans to replace Museum Square with 825 apartments and condos. Washington City Paper. https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/371533/developer-plans-to-replace-museum-square-with-825-apartments-and-condos/

(7) Golding, E. (2024, January 4). A holistic and reparative agenda for ending displacement in DC. DC Fiscal Policy Institute. https://www.dcfpi.org/all/agenda-for-ending-displacement