Jim Knight, CEO of Jubilee Housing, walks through Adams Morgan with John Legend and affordable housing thought leaders
Jubilee Housing Hosts John Legend and Affordable Housing Thought Leaders as Part of HUMANLEVEL Initiative in Partnership with Brookings
This week, acclaimed recording artist and activist John Legend visited Jubilee Housing as part of his HUMANLEVEL initiative, in collaboration with The Brookings Institution (Brookings), to learn about Jubilee’s Justice Housing® model and to discuss affordable housing production and policies in Washington, DC.
The visit included a walking tour of some of Jubilee’s buildings and development projects with local government officials and representatives from Brookings, National Fair Housing Alliance, and Economic Architecture, as well as hearing from some of Jubilee’s residents, leadership, staff, and organizational partners.
The tour included a visit to three new projects under development:
- Ontario Place will have 52 affordable housing units plus the region’s first affordable housing-based aquaponics farm, which will produce approximately 13,000 fresh fruits and vegetables per month. The produce will be offered to Ontario Place residents at a community kitchen at Jubilee’s King Emmanuel Baptist Church (KEB) project next door that will house a workforce development program.
- 1800 Columbia and Adams Morgan Plaza, which was donated to Jubilee by Truist Bank, will have about 50 units of affordable housing and a much-improved plaza for public use and events.
- 1724 Kalorama Road NW will have 25 units of affordable housing, two-thirds of which will be two—and three-bedroom units, addressing a citywide need for affordable family-sized apartments. Sitar Next Door, an expansion of Sitar Arts Center for youth arts education and workforce development, will occupy the ground floor of the 22,000-square-foot mixed-use space.
During the tour, Jubilee’s President and CEO Jim Knight and other thought leaders stressed that affordable housing is not about housing—it’s about the people who will live there, that research demonstrates that where one lives matters and that zip code is the highest predictor of future success; and place making is done best when working with vested community partners who are there for the long haul. These elements make up Jubilee’s Justice Housing® model—deeply affordable housing, with onsite or nearby services, in resource-rich neighborhoods with good schools, grocery stores, businesses, transportation, and employment.
Jubilee Housing staff member Damien Small, a successful graduate of Jubilee’s reentry program and now a monitor at the Men’s Reentry House, further reiterated that having a safe home, access to enrichment programs, and community support are essential to success.
“We are thrilled to have welcomed John Legend and others working on affordable housing to Jubilee Housing,” said Jim Knight. “His dedication to social justice and his influential voice can bring much-needed attention to the housing crisis in our city and beyond. Together, we are fostering true affordability in housing that focuses on the well-being of the residents and produces inclusive communities.”
The tour included a stop at Sitar Arts Center, one of Jubilee’s long-time partners. Legend and others heard from Sitar’s Executive Director Maureen Dwyer about how they have been providing access to quality arts education and enriching out-of-school-time opportunities to families with low incomes for almost 25 years. Next year, Sitar Next Door will allow Sitar to enroll hundreds more school-aged students in affordable after-school and summer arts education programs each year. The 6,346-square-foot space will include a recording and sound engineering studio, a S.T.E.A.M. lab, flexible performance space, and new arts learning studios.
“Sitar Arts Center deeply values our longstanding partnership with Jubilee Housing and our shared commitment to building thriving communities,” said Maureen Dwyer. “At Sitar, we remove financial and cultural barriers to high-quality arts education and career training for DC youth. I thank Jim and Jubilee for including Sitar in the HUMANLEVEL tour. John Legend is a role model for Sitar’s students, as an artist and an activist. The visit spotlighted the importance of the arts for the well-being of individuals and community as well as the need for our upcoming expansion with Jubilee Housing. Sitar Next Door will open space for hundreds more children, teens, and young adults to join our creative community of belonging and opportunity.”
At the end of the tour, Legend and other participants engaged in a roundtable discussion alongside Jubilee residents and leadership.
Other tour and roundtable participants included:
- Dr. Andre Perry, Senior Fellow, Brookings Metro
- Lisa Rice, President, National Fair Housing Alliance
- Stuart Yasgur, President, Economic Architecture
- Joe Knackstedt, Senior Housing Advisor from the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development
- Valerie Piper, Former FUSE Fellow and Housing Development Advisor, D.C. Department of Housing & Community Development
- Amy Liu, Senior Fellow & Presidential Advisor, Brookings Institution
The roundtable discussion was a chance for Legend to hear from leading policy and research experts, community leaders, and Jubilee residents about the connections between affordable housing policy and budget needs, the collaboration of partners who bring Jubilee’s housing projects to life, and policies that need to be changed on the local and national level. John Legend’s engagement with Jubilee Housing is part of a broader effort to advocate for equitable housing policies and to promote community-driven solutions in Washington, DC, and across the county.
Legend’s visit aims to raise awareness about the importance of affordable housing and to encourage public and private stakeholders to invest in solutions that ensure everyone has access to safe, affordable homes. Through his partnership with Brookings and support of the FUSE Executive Fellows program, Legend is working to advance research and policy recommendations that address the root causes of inequality and support community-led initiatives.
For more information about John Legend’s HUMANLEVEL initiative and his partnership with Brookings, please visit https://www.propperdaley.com/case-study/humanlevel and www.brookings.edu. For information about FUSE, please visit https://fuse.org.
Jubilee Housing CEO Jim Knight shares information on Justice Housing
John Legend and Maureen Dwyer, Executive Director at Sitar Arts Center
John Legend meets Jubilee Housing staff member and Reentry graduate Damien Small and Director of Reentry Gina Daye-Williams
John Legend and Jubilee Housing Staff
About Jubilee Housing
Jubilee Housing builds diverse, compassionate communities that create opportunities for everyone to thrive. We do this by building justice through housing — Justice Housing®. Homes are deeply affordable for families with low incomes and those facing the greatest barriers to housing, have onsite and nearby services to address additional systemic barriers to thriving beyond housing, and are located in resource-rich neighborhoods with access to high-performing schools, transit, grocery stores, and employment. For more information, visit www.jubileehousing.org.