A hammer, not a handout: City program allows poor to build their future residences
Neapolean Granderson walks into a first-floor apartment in a Southeast Washington building. Cobwebs drip from the ceiling. Holes pock the stained walls. A toilet lay on its side, broken and useless. ¶ Granderson smiles, proudly. ¶ "This is it," he says. Apartment 101, where he once lived and where, depending on how he performs in a District pilot program, he might soon again call home. ¶ In what District officials describe as an unprecedented effort, several city agencies and nonprofit groups have come together to create a program that, if successful, would reduce homelessness, public assistance rolls and the number of abandoned buildings across Washington. A program that, if successful, could prove a model for easing people off welfare at a time when the city is ending its practice of limitless benefits. ¶ The program, Sweat Equity, is based on a simple formula: Take individuals who have been homeless and on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and give them jobs refurbishing vacant city buildings, where they can then live for two years rent-controlled. In other words, hand them a hammer, not a handout.
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