February 9, 2012 | 11:53 AM | By

DCentric Picks: Our City Film Fest, Frederick Douglass’ Birthday

Courtesy of Our City Film Festival

"Fly By Light" follows 15 D.C. students as they leave the city for the West Virginia countryside for the first time.

What: Our City Film Festival.

When: Saturday and Sunday. Check the festival’s website for exact times.

Where: The Goethe Institute, 812 7 St. NW.

Cost: Tickets cost $10 per film.

Why you should go: The film festival screens films that take place in the District, showcasing the diversity of D.C. DCentric readers may be interested in seeing: “The Vigil,” which follows a Pakastani classical dancer who returns to her homeland from her adopted home in D.C.; “A Monument for Martin Luther King, Jr.,” a video essay on the King memorial and the role of memorials; and “Fly By Light,” a documentary-in-progress following 15 D.C. students who, for the first time, leave the city for the countryside of West Virginia.

Other events to consider: The National Park Service is celebrating the birthday of Frederick Douglass, who lived in D.C., with a full program of speeches and music. The free event takes place 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at his home (now the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site) at 1411 W St. SE.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Culture, History, Black History, DCentric Picks, Films
February 9, 2012 | 11:12 AM | By

Why Latino Unemployment is Dropping

Latinos constitute just 15 percent of the nation’s labor force, yet they’ve been hired for half of the new jobs the economy has added since 2010. The Los Angeles Times reports on why this demographic group is seeing its unemployment rate start to return to pre-recession levels.

 


Mining support services, where Latinos make up about a fifth of the workers, are expanding employment significantly. And, because Latinos account for a relatively small share of workers in the public sector, they aren’t bearing the brunt of deep cuts in government jobs.

There are other reasons, experts say, why Latinos are faring better than some other groups. For one thing, they might be more willing to take low-wage, temporary jobs. And they tend to be more mobile, willing to move from one county to another to get a job.

Some of the decline in Latino unemployment reflects the fact that many discouraged workers have stopped looking for jobs. Also, with jobs generally hard to find, fewer people are moving to the U.S. from Latin America, and more are returning home. The result is a smaller pool of workers who can more easily get employment.

Read more at: www.latimes.com

February 8, 2012 | 1:49 PM | By

Immigrant Population Grows in D.C.’s Suburbs

While immigration has slowed nationwide, it’s increasing in the D.C. area, which came in third for metro region with the most foreign-born population growth since 2005. But many immigrants are opting to settle in the suburbs rather than in the District, where 13.5 percent of residents are immigrants.

D.C.’s immigrant population is complex. More than half of nationalized citizens living in the District at least have a bachelor’s degree. Since 1990, poor Latinos (not all of whom are immigrants) are becoming more concentrated in the suburbs and less so in the city, partly due to gentrification.


Fueled by that economic motivation, more than one of every five of the region’s 5.6 million residents were not born on U.S. soil. Of that group, 40 percent came from Latin American countries, 35 percent from Asian nations, 14 percent from Africa and 9 percent from Europe.

Read more at: washingtonexaminer.com

February 7, 2012 | 2:28 PM | By

Mapping Local Poverty Trends Over Time

Most of the D.C.-metro area’s poor live in the suburbs, but the city is home to nearly all of the region’s “dangerously high-poverty” neighborhoods. That’s according to the Urban Institute, which developed this interactive map (seen below) showing concentrations of poverty by race throughout the region. Neighborhoods where poverty rates are 30 percent or higher are considered “high-poverty.”

Poor whites and Latinos are more likely to live in the D.C.’s suburbs than poor blacks. The researchers note:

High-poverty neighborhoods — like those east of the Anacostia River in DC — didn’t occur “naturally” nor do they reflect the “choices” of poor families about where to live. Instead, these places represent the legacy of decades of racial discrimination, legally sanctioned segregation, and public housing policies. And our map shows just how stubborn this legacy is; despite dramatic demographic and economic changes sweeping the Washington region over the past two decades, poor Black families have remained highly concentrated in DC neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River.

You can zoom in to see poverty in the region or in the city, and use the slider to see how it changes over time:

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Around the City, The People, Poverty, Race and Class
February 7, 2012 | 12:30 PM | By

Five Facts About the Marriage Gap

Geoffrey Fairchild / Flickr

How likely you are to be married may depend on your economic stability and income. Marriage rates today differ depending on class, according to a new study by the Brookings Institution. Here are five facts behind the marriage gap:

There’s an association between marriage status and poverty.

Children born into single-parent households are more likely to live in poverty. That’s obviously not the case for everyone, but it’s more difficult to make ends meet for those who don’t have another breadwinner in the house.

In D.C., 3.8 percent of married couples with children live in poverty. But 42.3 percent of female-headed households with children live in poverty, according to census estimates. The median income for single women with families is $33,485; for single men with families, it’s $46,670; and for married couples with families, it’s $133,338.

It’s not all bad: declining marriage rates among women are partly due to increased independence.

Women are waiting longer to get married than 40 years ago. They have more freedom to pursue careers outside of the home, more control over when they want to have children and have “the ability to be more selective when choosing a spouse,” researchers noted. In 1970, 44 percent of middle aged women had no independent earnings. Today, only 25 percent don’t make their own money.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: The People, Family, Marriage, Poverty, Wealth
February 7, 2012 | 9:41 AM | By

The Most Coveted Job in D.C.

Getting a job in the District that doesn’t require a college degree is a difficult undertaking, let alone getting a good job. But they do exist. The Washington Post reports that many of the city’s trash collectors have been in their posts for decades. Although the work is hard, the hours aren’t very long and the benefits are good. Collectors make an average of $36,000 a year. Trash collector, however, is one of the most difficult jobs to get in D.C. government, with only a few openings a year.


On a recent weekday, Nix, 48, and Lorenzo Bland, 46, hustle through alleys in the Palisades, rolling one can after another onto the lifts. Some alleys that they pass through off MacArthur Boulevard are nicer than many streets in the District. There are landscaped yards, trellised barbecue pits, and playhouses the size of studio apartments. But Bland and Nix don’t do much sightseeing. They can’t if they want to keep up with the truck. The pace is relentless.

Read more at: www.washingtonpost.com

February 6, 2012 | 1:53 PM | By

When Affordable Housing Isn’t So Affordable

Josh / Flickr

When planning affordable housing, the major consideration is whether residents will be able to make rent. Housing is considered affordable when you’re spending 30 percent of your income on it. But paying rent is only one part of affordable living; you still have to spend money to eat and get around.

GOOD reports that, in the long run, factors such as transportation, grocery options and other costs can make some affordable housing developments more expensive than others. For instance, the difference in living costs between some of Chicago’s affordable housing developments was high as $3,000 a year per family, depending on location.

That’s relevant to D.C., where 55 percent of the population doesn’t make enough money to afford rent (the average household would have to earn $28.10 an hour to be able to afford housing). Transportation costs differ neighborhood to neighborhood — Tenleytown residents are paying $1,003 a year on transportation, while those in Columbia Heights are paying about $200 less. It may only be a couple of hundred of dollars, but the difference in transportation costs could big for families on limited budgets.

FILED UNDER: Public Transportation, Affordable Housing, Housing
February 6, 2012 | 8:35 AM | By

Immigrant Awaits Deportation After Calling Police

D.C. has one of the more lenient approaches to immigration enforcement. Since 1984, police have been directed to not inquire about immigration status during arrests. But sometimes it’s not so clean cut: HuffPost DC reports on one man’s story, Jai Shankar, an Indian immigrant who has lived in the U.S. for 20 years and is now awaiting deportation. He called D.C. police three years ago to report a theft and the officer ran Shankar’s name through a law enforcement database, finding he had an outstanding warrant for deportation. It appears a general check was performed on Shankar, not one relating specifically to his immigration status.


In the meantime, word of Shankar’s predicament will have a chilling effect on the willingness of other immigrants to seek help — even from nonprofits dedicated to their assistance, tenant advocates say.

“They’re afraid to come to tenant meetings because they think we’re all authorities,” said Jim McGrath, chairman of the D.C. Tenants Advocacy Coalition. “When they see an Anglo, they see a badge.”

Read more at: www.huffingtonpost.com

February 3, 2012 | 2:27 PM | By

What To Call Gentrification By Non-Whites: Does Race Matter?

Gentrification takes place when middle and upper-income people move into low-income communities, which ushers in economic change, reinvestment and development. Jumping back a few weeks ago, a discussion took place on DCentric when we pondered a more specific kind of gentrification: gentefication, which is when low-income, immigrant Latino neighborhoods are gentrified by second-generation, well-to-do Latinos.

So we wondered: is gentrification much different when gentrifiers aren’t white, so much so that it requires its own term?

Alex Baca tweeted that having a separate word for this kind of gentrification is unnecessary:

It's class-based. Don't need fancy names. RT @ On gentrification & rhetoric when non-whites are gentrifiers http://t.co/IrO6Et65
January 11, 2012 2:06 pm via Tweetie for MacReplyRetweetFavorite
@alexbaca
alexbaca

But others argued that gentrification by non-whites does have different implications for neighborhoods. Commenter Gente Negra, wrote:

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Around the City, The People, Gentrification, H Street NE, Race and Class, Rhetoric, Shaw
February 3, 2012 | 10:37 AM | By

Growing Up, Style Skating in D.C.

D.C. was once home to a thriving, style rollerskating culture, “born at segregation-era skate nights in black communities throughout the country in the 1950s and 1960s,” Washington City Paper reported in 2011.

D.C.’s rinks closed in the 1980s, and skaters are still around, but they have to leave the District to skate. They go to places like Temple Hills Skate Center in Prince George’s County. In this video below, local journalist Lauren Schneiderman profiles the skate center and one employee in particular, 60-year-old Gerald Chase. Here, he talks about growing up in 1960s D.C. and frequenting the now-closed National Arena Roller Rink on Kalorama Road NW:

“We all got together every Sunday, and we went up to Kalorama Road from 2 to 5, and my mother told me, ‘If you want to go skating, you have to go to church.’” he recalls. “I didn’t miss church for three years.”