Mayor Bowser Celebrates Dedication of Affordable Housing Project Honoring Civil Rights Leader
Channing E. Phillips Homes development is financed by $18M in District funding
Mayor Muriel Bowser joined Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, United States Attorney for the District of Columbia Channing Phillips, Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen, and Todd Lee, Director of the DC Housing Finance Agency, to celebrate the dedication of the Channing E. Phillips Homes, a new affordable housing project financed with $18 million in District funding.
“Thanks to the strong partnership between my Administration, the faith community, and others, the Channing E. Phillips Homes will help ensure that the District is an affordable and equitable city,” said Mayor Muriel Bowser. “This type of affordable housing is a great example of what we need across all 8 wards.”
The project, located adjacent to the Shaw/Howard University Metro station at 1710 7th Street, NW, includes 56 affordable housing units and 3,100 square feet of street front retail. The new building bears the name of Channing Emery Phillips, a beloved and avid anti-poverty civil rights leader who fought for decent housing and social justice for all.
Born in 1928, Phillips served as Senior Minister of the historic Lincoln Congregational Temple. Phillips became a national political figure in 1968, when he was nominated for U.S. President at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, becoming the first African-American nominated at a national convention of a major political party. Continuing the family legacy, Phillips’ son – Channing Phillips – serves as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.
“Our dream of new affordable housing has now become real after so many years,” said David Jacobs, president of the Lincoln Westmoreland Housing board of directors. “Opportunities to build affordable housing next to Metro are simultaneously much needed and extremely rare,” he added. Said Rob Agus, who had the original vision for the project, “Lincoln Westmoreland Housing is honored to develop Channing Phillips Homes as affordable housing for residents of the Shaw community. May it be enabled to continue this holy work.”
The development team is a unique four-decade partnership of two D.C.-area United Church of Christ (UCC) churches: Westmoreland Congregational and Lincoln Congregational Temple. The two churches’ successful development of affordable housing dates back to 1969, when they broke ground on the Lincoln Westmoreland Apartments – a 108-unit, 10-story affordable apartment building now located next door to Channing E. Phillips Homes.
The Channing E. Phillips Homes was made possible by District funding through low income housing tax credits and tax exempt bonds. Those are two of several tools used to produce and preserve affordable housing in the District, to include the Housing Production Trust Fund (HPTF). Earlier this month, Mayor Bowser celebrated the unprecedented investment of over $100 million from HPTF. The $106.3 million supports 19 projects that will produce or preserve more than 1,200 affordable housing units in all 8 wards. Since taking office, Mayor Bowser has made affordable housing a major focus of her administration.
Mayor Bowser has committed $100 million annually to the fund each year of her administration – more than any city per capita in the country. A report issued by Center for Community Change shows that the District’s $100 million fund more than tripled the next highest fund amount for a U.S. city. Compared to states, DC’s trust fund is the country’s second largest.
Since January 2015, DHCD has produced and preserved over 2,100 affordable housing units in the District with more to come. Another 5,300 affordable housing units — capable of housing nearly 12,000 District residents — are in the development pipeline.
For more information on the District’s affordable housing investments, visit: dhcd.dc.gov