Bates Area Civic Association

Neighbors, ANC5C Commissioners Anita Bonds and Sylvia Pinkney designed a petition to oppose the bid by the Latin American Youth Center to design a charter school with residential units and social service programs at the JF Cook School. Please find an online version of that petition here.

See below this email by Commissioner Pinkney on the Eckington listserv:

The Latin American Youth Center (LAYC), a multicultural organization that supports youth and their families, was selected to develop JF Cook Elementary School, at 30 P Street, NW. LAYC is a charter school for teens and adults age 16 – 24. The school offers GED classes, vocational training in the construction trade, and social service programs that include foster care, victims assistance, mental health, re-entry supportive services, substance abuse, transitional living, independent living, and etc. to 150 students. Forty of the students with small children will be housed in residential units/apartments to be constructed as an addition to the JF Cook Elementary School.

The use of JF Cook Elementary School as a charter school with residential units and social service programs is inconsistent with the interest and purposes expressed by the residents of the surrounding neighborhoods in close proximity to JF Cook School. The residents of these neighborhoods informed government officials of their desire to use the former school building as a community arts facility with retail or elementary education programs with a library.

This Truxton Circle/Bates neighborhood is already saturated with social services/programs. Programs presently housed in the neighborhood include the following:

— So Others May Eat (SOME) – 71 “O” Street, NW

SOME provides a mental health clinic, hot meals, dental clinic, single family housing and transitional housing in various buildings on “O” Street. Between 500 – 800 people a day visit these facilities for meals or medical care. In order to eat breakfast and lunch, many of the people served stay in the neighborhood until after lunch is served.

— The Veterans Administration operates a transitional home for veterans on the corner of New York Avenue and 1st Street, NW.

— On New York Avenue between “N” Street and 1st Street, NW another transitional home for men is in full operation.

— A children’s group home at the corner of 1st and “Q” Street, NW.

— A mental health facility in the 1300 block of North Capitol Street, NW.

— The Dunbar apartment on “O” Street, NW, next to MM Washington High School opened recently to house homeless women.

The JF Cook Elementary School is located in the Single Memeber District 5C02, Eckington/Truxton Circle.

Will you support SMD 5C02 by signing our petition?  Petitions are being circulated throughout the Eckington, Bloomingdale, Truxton Circle, Edgewood, Bates, Hanover, and Dunbar Shaw communities.

Sylvia Pinkney
COMMISSIONER ANC 5C02