Anu Yadav is a playwright, actress and a staff member of the University of the Poor’s School of Arts and Culture. In 2002 Yadav became a volunteer organizer with Friends and Residents of Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg, a group of families protesting the government-funded relocation and demolition of their southeast Washington housing project. She is starring in a play, “'Capers”, directed and developed by Patrick Crowley, based on that experience.
Every night that I perform my play, “'Capers,” I inhabit 12 different characters. I take on the gestures, accents and expressions of people I knew from the old neighborhood, the Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg public housing projects in southeast Washington—nicknamed ‘Capers.
That was a world of God-fearing grandmothers, poetry-spouting teenagers, nine-year-old crime novelists, brassy working moms, street corner boys and recreation center marms. The audience sees families who found out their neighborhood would be demolished and they would be moved away. They see a community fighting back.
It’s a joy for me to portray that world and that fight. But while I’m on stage, a part of me is in mourning. ‘Capers, the neighborhood and the community, is gone. The campaign that originally inspired me to create this play ended. Badly.
I arrived in D.C. four years ago after the federal government told ‘Capers families their homes would be demolished. The relocation was funded by HOPE VI, a notoriously mismanaged federal grant program charged with tearing down the worst public housing developments. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s idea was to build mixed-income communities on the site. Maybe improve the living standard for everyone.
‘Capers residents were angry. They’d been told they had to move out and eventually could move back. But questions remained. When? Where, exactly? Who will qualify? How will they afford to live in the newly transformed neighborhood? Families began to protest, petition, research and agitate. They formed a watchdog group with outside organizers, Friends and Residents of Arthur Capper/Carrollsburg.
I heard about Friends and Residents when I moved to D.C. Their passion ignited me. So I got involved. I knocked on doors, helped gather signatures, told people about ways Friends and Residents was fighting for them to come back.
Then, after a year, I thought of doing a play. I could gather the stories of all the people I knew and of ‘Capers itself. I could play all the characters, easier than assembling a cast, and perhaps it would get noticed. Maybe people would care. Residents agreed to be interviewed—but they didn’t really know what to expect.
For the next two years, I came by weekly, often daily, to ‘Capers. I nosed my way into the community. Walking along L Street SE to the recreation center, I would be accosted by four year olds spilling out of front yards.
“Miss Anu! Where you goin’?” They would tug at me to play right then and there.
“Do that old lady voice!”
“Do that thing you do with your chin!”
“You got a moustache, why you don’t cut it off?”
When I’d reach the recreation center, nine-year-old Jasmine would update me on her novel, Crappy in the Corner .
“It’s about a monster named Crappy,” she said proudly, “who comes into my house and cuts off my head and my brother’s head.”
I didn¹t know what to say.
“He dies at the end,” she added.
I’d stop by Miss Mary’s house. Literally and figuratively, she was the neighborhood seer, dispensing spiritual advice to those in need of prayer. Fifty-six years old and taking disability, Miss Mary would sit on the porch cradling a cordless phone, amid cardboard boxes neatly stacked to the ceiling of her living room. She said she was prepared for the day the city’s Housing Authority would call and tell her to move. Every time, she’d pray aloud for me.
“Bless this child, for she is doing good. Walk with her. Keep her healthy and out of harm’s way.”
Me, this 25 year-old Hindu from Kansas, head bowed in reverence. Miss Mary standing, eyes closed with one palm against my forehead and one palm raised gently to Jesus.
“And grant this child a husband.”
“Listen to her, God.” I’d say silently. I figured it couldn’t hurt.
I could lecture you about how housing is a human right, as stated in Article 25 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights; about how people are experts in their own situation; about how the lives and needs of working people are not reflected in the policies made by people who don’t understand and live in far away places. I could ask you to consider the humanity and dignity of people struggling to survive in a society that criminalizes and vilifies them for being poor.
But right now, I just miss the neighborhood. When families started to disappear, I took it personally. I missed Jasmine and her novel, the four year olds, Miss Mary, all of them, deeply. And I miss seeing them together.
The four-by-six block community is a ghost town now. Not a glorious urban renewal, but an empty, scarred place, the remnant of forced removal of the poor. Soon ‘Capers will be paved over, rebuilt and renamed with a new community in place.
No one will argue that the intentions of HOPE VI weren’t on the mark. Poor communities need attention and resources, and HOPE VI was a vehicle for that. But ‘Capers residents were never consulted in a real way throughout the process. Adults and children alike were actively misinformed, and were threatened by the police for simply speaking up at community meetings. I don’t have an answer to what the options could have been. But in a sense, it’s not my place to say. Democracy is about dialogue. And the people most affected should be engaged as leaders in the search for an answer.
In the meantime, I’ll keep performing my play. Maybe it will encourage others to hear how people decided to fight back. HOPE VI has ended but maybe it will raise a warning cry about similar policies cropping up, such as the Washington’s New Communities Initiative. There is still a need for working families to demand to be heard about legislation shaping their lives.
And I’ll keep missing the neighborhood.
Months ago I saw Miss Mary. At the time I had just finished the play. She got worried when I said I didn’t have a job. She quietly tried to slip me $20. I pushed the crumpled bill back in her palm with tears creeping out of the corners of my eyes.
“Honey,” she whispered, her voice cracking, “You will never go hungry or homeless. You will always have a place to stay.”
Thank you, Miss Mary—and ‘Capers—for letting me in. I won’t forget.
