Creating Communities of Belonging

When Washington Housing Conservancy (WHC) began in 2018, our overarching goal was to preserve rental units in neighborhoods facing development pressure and keep them affordable to prevent displacement, especially for the “missing middle,” the teachers, first responders, hospital workers, who are the backbone of our region and whose income makes them ineligible for public subsidies, but their wages have not kept pace with rising housing costs. 

Preserving housing that is affordable is only half of WHC’s solution. The other half is maintaining and creating vibrant, mixed-income properties where people can stay in their communities, build relationships with neighbors and prosper.   

Why mixed income communities?  

WHC is a mixed income housing model. We serve residents at every stage of life. Our affordability plan is 31% of our units are for people making $60,000 or less, 45% of units are for people making $80,000 or less, and 24% are market rate. 

Harvard economist Raj Chetty has clearly demonstrated through his extensive research that when people across socio-economic groups are able to connect with each other as friends and neighbors, it spurs economic mobility. These connections across lines of difference don’t always happen naturally. And that is why WHC’s model fuses its real estate strategy to acquire properties with a social impact strategy that helps foster these connections. Stable, affordable housing in high opportunity neighborhoods with access to employment centers, high performing schools, fresh and healthy food, and other amenities, provide the foundation for economic, physical and mental wellbeing. Friendships and associations between lower and higher socioeconomic status residents create the economic connection that Chetty notes is so critical to fostering upward mobility.  

During the early days of WHC, we partnered with Case Western Reserve University’s National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities (NIMC) to help us create an organizational strategy, rooted in the creation of thriving mixed-income communities. Together, we developed and implemented social impact strategies that disrupt inequitable housing practices, empower residents, and connect them with each other and the resources (i.e., rent relief) and services (i.e., financial literacy, job training, health care, etc.) needed to be healthy and successful. Our social impact work is built on four key elements:  

• Community Building to combat isolation, bring people together, and create connections across lines of difference. 

• Placemaking to create places and spaces within our communities that bring people together, celebrate culture and diversity, cultivate a sense of belonging, and honor the incredible contributions of DC residents. 

• Human Capacity and Wealth Building to invest in services, support, and experiences that promote resident economic mobility, educational advancement, self-sufficiency, and self-determination. 

• Inclusive Property Management training to ground our property management staff in these core values and embed them into our day-to-day, and to avoid replicating the racial harm and social exclusion often produced by mixed-income housing.  

At the heart of our social impact strategy are our social impact coordinators and our resident stewards. 

Our resident stewards are residents who volunteer to collaborate with WHC and property management staff, and other residents to promote an inclusive, welcoming environment. Resident Stewards serve as informal role models for the broader resident community and are encouraged to voice constructive feedback on residential experiences to WHC and the site team.   

Our social impact coordinators are WHC on-site staff who actively engage residents, curate moments when they can have leadership in community life, solve problems, and support other residents. With the ideas, input and actions of the resident stewards, our social impact coordinators design and implement community building activities to bring residents together, and meet with residents individually and in small groups to understand their needs and aspirations so that they can be connected to other residents and community support tailored to their personal goals.  

Increasing WHC’s social impact capacity and expertise  

WHC is pleased to welcome our newest social impact coordinator Shannon Marshall, who comes to us with a background in case management working in resident services at traditional affordable housing organizations. She was attracted to the position at WHC because of our focus on resident empowerment.  

“WHC puts residents in the driver’s seat and me in the passenger seat. I am supporting residents to build the communities they want but the residents take the leadership role, so they feel it belongs to them.” she says.  

At WHC, she is excited to move beyond just addressing immediate basic resident needs to thinking larger scale. Shannon notes, “How do we thrive within the community we live; how do we bring resources in as well as have residents go out and be integrated into the larger community.” 

Social impact work is hard, takes time and isn’t always linear in its outcomes. But the work is critical to real impact and change. WHC was founded to disrupt the status quo, and our social impact work is critical to our changemaking. Ultimately, we seek to reinvent the housing system as a pathway to prosperity, opportunity and community. 

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