A handshake is worth 50 votes is a quote attributed to former President Lyndon B. Johnson.
Late last year, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced she would not be running for a fourth term, and on Monday, she stared her final year in office hosting a community public safety walk in Ward 8’s Fairlawn neighborhood.
During the walking tour, Bowser shook hands, smiled and waved at people yelling her name, and listened to the concerns of ANC commissioners and residents of Ward 8.
Joining Bowser on the walk were people who lived in Ward 8, members of her staff, Interim D.C. Chief of Police Jeffery Carroll and Council member Trayon White.
It would have been hard to miss the look of concern on Bowser’s face as she heard from members of the community during the walking tour that started on Minnesota Avenue SE at Boone Elementary School.
“It was a look of shock, and she couldn’t believe it was so deplorable over here,” Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Andrea Davis said.
Davis, who represents the Anacostia and Fairlawn neighborhoods, said she hoped Bowser would see some of the issues that are plaguing the Ward 8 community.
“One of the main issues I brought up was the influx of drug addicts, people suffering from substance abuse, prostitution and homelessness,” Davis said. “There is a serious need for job training in this community.”
Davis pointed out that the park near Boone Elementary School is a popular spot for drug users.
Honoring Individual Power and Strength, or HIPS, the city’s harm prevention organization, is one of the reasons why spots like the park near Boone Elementary School have become such a popular spot for drug users.
“They know that they can come over here and they can get the clean drug needles. They know they can get the condoms. They know that they’re going to pass out food over here,” Davis said.
Davis said she thinks the reason HIPS hosts the clean needle exchange there is so it’s kept out of the more affluent neighborhoods.
“They want to put in the predominantly Black communities,” Davis said.
Bowser said while she doesn’t agree with Davis on the reason, she said she does not have enough data to tell her that she is wrong: “She lives here all the time. … I think we have some very significant human services needs.”
‘We’re accountable to the people who hired us to do these jobs’
While speaking to the press after the walk, Bowser said from what she heard from the community during the walk, the biggest issues are the open-air drug market and prostitution.
“I think we do have tools to address it, and so I’m going to make sure that they’re being deployed here with the appropriate amount of resources,” Bowser said. “(Ward 8 residents) need to know that we’re accountable to the people who hired us to do these jobs and we get results.”
One Ward 8 resident that joined the walking tour was native Washingtonian Terry Brown.
“I’m just an abused taxpayer these days,” Brown joked. “That’s what I call myself.”
Brown said he believes the drug use now is, in some ways, worse than it was in the 1980s and ’90s.
“You didn’t have people smoking crack in the park in broad daylight. You had them in the alley hiding or in the crack house, but here, they smoke crack in the park broad daylight,” Brown said.
Davis said there was another issue she pointed out to Bowser during the walking tour.
“We have a lot of slumlords over here whose buildings aren’t being properly managed so they know they can have a place to squat in,” she said.
While Bowser said there are things the government can do, the community also needs to help. For example, when she sees a lot of trash, she said, “I can almost promise you, that there’s certain other activities that go along with it.”
“We need community property owners, business owners, to also be doing what they’re supposed to do, and cleaning up around their businesses, around their homes,” she added. “We need people to stop throwing trash on the street.”
WTOP asked Bowser what she gets from looking in the eyes of members of the community and hearing what they have to say.
“It’s necessary, because I often look at a citywide view, and sometimes, my view is boiled down to numbers on a sheet of paper. It’s important to know, while we’ve had historic decreases in crime, we still have people who don’t feel safe in their neighborhoods and have very significant public safety issues that deserve our attention,” Bowser said.
Davis said she believes Bowser’s reaction was one of genuine concern.
“I think that she was very sincere in wanting to make this community better, because Ward 8 is part of D.C., and this is her legacy,” Davis said. “I believe that she wants to make the whole of D.C. better, and I believe that’s why she’s here.”
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