According to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, most Black-owned businesses in the U.S. — and many in wards 7 and 8 — are sole proprietorships, meaning they’re run by one person. That makes it harder to track statistics like foot traffic and revenue.
Tarza Mitchell, the policy director at DCFPI, said the District “has one of the largest Black-to-white wealth and income gaps in the nation and the median racial wealth gap actually grows with higher education levels.”
“And what this package would do is provide essential stabilization dollars for families and businesses right now that make a huge investment in their lives ongoing over the next 10 years,” says Tazra Mitchell of the left-leaning D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute.
According to a report by DC Fiscal Policy Institute, FRPP has preserved 1,400 affordable housing units since 2002—units that will remain affordable for the next 40 years.
Momentum is building among D.C. lawmakers and advocates to make another hefty investment in repairing and redeveloping the D.C. Housing Authority’s most troubled properties.
Well-off Washingtonians could be hit with a tax hike under a proposal in the works that aims to shore up the District’s pandemic-plagued coffers.
By the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute executive’s estimates, about 40% of D.C.’s low-income households devoted more than a third of their monthly income to paying rent — the federal standard for determining if someone is “cost burdened” by housing prices.
The pandemic has financially crippled lower-income D.C.-area renters with very little hope of recovery, disproportionately affecting people of color, according to Census surveys.
The D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute article showed that 90% of households most in need of affordable housing are Black and brown and spend more than 50% of their income on rent.
“Child poverty in America is really a national disgrace,” Tazra Mitchell is a policy advisor with the D.C. Fiscal Institute said.
