Blog / Racial Justice

We, the undersigned 33 organizations are writing to ask you to use reserves, underspending from government agencies, and/or other funds not dedicated to help DC residents living on low incomes meet basic needs (including but not limited to affordable housing efforts) to provide eviction prevention funding. The stakes are too high to shut down our eviction prevention efforts now. We estimate the unmet need for rental arrears is approximately $74.9 million, and we ask you to identify at least this much funding to meet this need as well as the need for utility arrears which we are not able to estimate.

Bread for the City joins fellow non-profit leaders in DC in requesting that the DC government halt the CARE Pilot Program and stop the creation of “no camping zones,” which are reminiscent of other types of zoning that, throughout our history, have disenfranchised, displaced, disrupted, and destroyed Black neighborhoods and communities. Housing ends homelessness. Bread for the City is opposed to the creation of “no camping zones” and the systematic clearing of encampments.

Join us for a previously recorded Breaking Bread conversation series on housing justice in DC, including dialogue on protecting tenants’ rights, affordable housing development and preservation, public housing redevelopment, and more.

Housing literally saves lives—and the combination of COVID-19 and DC’s underinvestment in deeply affordable housing will undoubtedly further racial inequity.

Today Bread for the City joins everyone who commemorates Juneteenth.  Remembering Juneteenth allows an annual opportunity for America and American’s to acknowledge the real harm done to Black people during the centuries of enslavement in this country. It’s also an opportunity for us to move towards anti-racism and flight to eliminate the race-based socioeconomic disparities that still take place in our communities.

What I’ve learned over the past year is that antiracism and fighting white supremacy is not an intellectual endeavor. It is an embodied, healing, lifelong journey full of mistakes, love, and discomfort. As a Jewish white woman, I wrestled with how my heritage, intergenerational trauma, and internalized antisemitism were all wrapped up in white supremacy and fighting racism. I’m writing this to reflect on my own experience in hopes that more white people will join me on an antiracist journey.

In this week’s Black History Month segment, we highlighted Initiative 77, a voter-approved ballot initiative to phase out the minimum wage exemption for tipped employees.