D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and a cadre of District government personnel recently walked a little over a mile through a portion of Southeast in response to a community’s longtime concerns about violent crime, drug use and prostitution.
More than a year ago, the wave of illicit activity compelled one community member to run for office to represent the Fairlawn community. Since clinching the advisory neighborhood commissioner seat, she and other freshmen commissioners continue to demand solutions.
“I felt like I needed a title so I can get in the room, so I can make my voice heard as well as my community’s voice,” said Andrea Davis, commissioner of ANC Single-Member District 8A03, which includes Boone Elementary School in Southeast. “Maybe someone would actually listen to us and come and see what our issues were. Now, we’re having this walk [with] all these government agencies out here.”
As Davis, a homeowner of 14 years, recounted to The Informer, conditions in Fairlawn took a turn for the worse at the height of the pandemic. That’s when she said homeless residents from other communities poured into Fairlawn to use narcotics and engage in sexual activity in front of children and elders at all times of the day.
Davis said the last straw came in 2024, when she had to walk around her neighborhood with a bucket to pick up drug paraphernalia that accumulated in grass and on sidewalks. That milestone, she said, came well after she and other community members reached out to the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice, as well as other District offices and agencies.
“We started trying to get people to pay attention, to come over here, to address these issues,” Davis told The Informer. “I sent letters, and they weren’t the nicest worded letters because I was frustrated and I was angry with the inattention that our community was getting. Nobody was actually giving any real attention to Ward 8.”
On Monday evening, Davis and dozens of community members circled Bowser as she walked along Minnesota Avenue, starting at Boone Elementary School and ending near the 1700 block of R Street SE. Along the way, the mayor acknowledged neighbors on the streets who expressed excitement to see her in the community.
Bowser also spoke extensively with Davis and others who poured their hearts out about the conditions they’ve encountered.
With budget season on the horizon, Davis said she and her ANC colleagues are demanding a bevy of investments, including in wraparound services, business development, and the creation of family-friendly parks.
For Davis, time’s of the essence.
“Up until today, nothing significant has happened to help address the issues in this community,” Davis told The Informer. “We have drug dealers standing directly across the street as well as in front of Boone Elementary School. Prostitution happening directly in front of the school. People with mental health [issues] running up and down the middle of the intersection inside of the streets and directly in front of the school. When is enough going to be enough?”
The Tour to Kick Off Mayor Bowser’s Last-Ever Round of Tours
At the end of a more-than-an-hour tour, Bowser conferred with a team that included the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), D.C. Department of Behavioral Health (DBH), D.C. Department of Transportation, D.C. Department of Buildings (DOB), and the Mayor’s Office of Community Relations and Services.
Also on the tour was D.C. Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8).
Items on Bowser’s list include: boosting MPD and DBH activity around Boone Elementary; increasing lighting on streets and around parks; checking for drug-free zone implementation, monitoring commercial properties alleged to be selling illicit substances; and exploring a policy package to address the presence of a 24-hour storefront.
Bowser also mentioned the likely launch of a task force to eliminate prostitution and open-air drug markets. She set her sights on negligent landlords alleged to foment hotspots of crime and illegal dumping. In speaking about her plans, the mayor acknowledged that successful execution requires a deeper understanding of who’s participating in illicit activities and why.
“Are the people that we are seeing…from the neighborhood [or] are they coming to the neighborhood?” Bowser told The Informer on Monday. “It was a mix of both, so that suggests to me that we want to try to make sure that our service deployment is happening in the right way. We have had persistent prostitution activity on some corridors and I think we do have tools to address it, so I’m going to make sure that they’re being deployed here with the appropriate amount of resources.”
As she’s done in year’s past, Bowser also called on community members to help the government. She said that combating the onslaught of illegal activity, in part, requires those of sound mind consistently doing the small things.
“I know when I see a lot of trash on the ground, I can almost promise that there’s certain other activities that go along with it,” Bowser said. “So we need community property owners and business owners to also be doing what they’re supposed to do in cleaning up around their businesses, around their homes. Our agencies need to be out there doing it and we need people to stop throwing trash on the street. We need all of those things.”
Bowser’s recent visit to Fairlawn, a working and middle-class neighborhood bordered by Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Minnesota Avenue SE, Marion Barry Avenue SE, and Naylor Road SE, marked three years since she made a similar public trek in the community.
This walk, inspired in part by crime data, community members’ longtime complaints and, more recently, sewage problems that postponed Anacostia High School’s homecoming activities, kicks off Bowser’s annual tour of District neighborhoods.
Though grateful for the attention, Jamila White, longtime chair of ANC 8A, implored the Bowser administration to take walks in some of the more blighted portions of Ward 8. She called it a matter of equity.
“She’s coming to the areas that have the greatest wealth in Ward 8, and the greatest concentration of non-Black people in Ward 8,” White told The Informer. “The housing values are higher [and] there’s a lot of wealth here. There’s still a disproportion in terms of who gets more concentration and more attention, and who are the homeowners versus the non-homeowners.”
During the latter part of last year, after announcing that she wouldn’t run for re-election, Bowser defended her record in Ward 8, telling reporters that she’s directed millions upon millions of dollars to Downtown Anacostia, St. Elizabeths East Campus development, and other projects that promise a surge in economic activity unlike what’s been seen in generations.
Chairperson White said, despite those investments, the Bowser administration’s cooperation with federal law enforcement, along with conditions like Fairlawn community members continue to experience, have left a sour taste in constituents’ mouths.
That’s why she questions the mayor’s timing.
“I’m not criticizing it, but I do think that some of it was for optics,” Commissioner White said. “We had such a bad year last year, in terms of engagement, with the broader community, especially our Black and brown community, given the federal occupation, [now it’s] how can they can kind of go back to the community.”
An even more important question, White said, concerns whether the Bowser administration will address these deep-seated issues with less than a year left in her term.
“How fast can government move to do some of the things that we need that are much more transformational?” White told The Informer. “Some of [the issues] oftentimes are structural, if not [something] within a certain institution of government that needs to be changed. Those kinds of things, I just don’t think any mayor who’s leaving office is going to prioritize.”
A Team of Old and New Commissioners That’s on a Mission
ANC 8A, which includes Anacostia and Fairlawn, has veteran commissioners— Chairperson White and Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Robin McKinney (8A06). There are also newer faces: Davis, Fria Moore, Tomora Redman, Anthony Foreman, and Tom Donohue.
As a team, ANC 8A remains focused on maintaining lines of communication between their community and the Bowser administration. For instance, Redman spoke to Bowser about her frustrations with the U.S. National Park Service (NPS), an entity that she says, despite their purview over the federal parks, hasn’t done much to address issues of concern to her and her constituents.
One of those issues concerns the deterioration of a stone wall in front of what was formerly known as Marbury Plaza.
“They told me that they didn’t have anybody that could come and fix the wall,” said Redman, commissioner of Single-Member District 8A07. “Even when it came down to them bringing a chainsaw out here, they said they had one chainsaw and it was broken or they didn’t have someone certified to use it within the agency at that particular point in time.”
NPS didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Redman, a fourth-generation D.C. resident, said that, more than a year into her first term as advisory neighborhood commissioner, she’s become “disenchanted” with the role. She however acknowledged Bowser’s presence as a turning point in that journey.
“When she was seeing things, bringing the agencies up and asking them questions, it felt as though she understood what we as commissioners and residents in the ward have been trying to explain for a long time,” Redman said, albeit with a charge to the mayor. “This was supposed to have been an organic walk. [She was supposed to] come see the neighborhood as we see it during the daytime. I really think she kind of saw a little bit yesterday, just a little, not a lot, but just a little.”
In the aftermath of her meeting with a homeless D.C. resident, Redman placed the onus on DBH to fill in the service gaps afflicting people in her community. She said solutions will demand more than what the government can accomplish during a normal work day.
“I asked them to come out and walk the park because I am finding candles are being burned out there and blankets where it’s obvious [that] people are sleeping out there, food is out there,” Redman told The Informer. “When DBH is claiming they’re in my single-member district, I don’t see them and they’re not leaving anything behind. Homeless people are not going to be out from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. They’re showing up at 9 p.m. Leave some flyers behind.”
In a statement, DBH said it engages residents dealing with mental health issues and drug and alcohol addiction via its mobile van, which is parked along Minnesota Avenue SE every Monday. The agency also spoke about outreach teams that visit Fairlawn twice a week to talk with community members, give information about services to businesses and distribute Naloxone.
“In Ward 8, there are 35 behavioral health provider locations and about 12,000 people received support in 2024, the highest number by ward in the District,” DBH’s statement read. “Residents in emotional distress, feeling depressed or anxious, or who just need someone to listen, can call or text 988 anytime and talk to a crisis counselor. Residents can call 1-888-793-4357 anytime to enroll with a behavioral health provider located near them.”
Donohue, commissioner of Single-Member District 8A01, echoed Redman’s sentiments, telling The Informer that he rarely sees any DBH personnel along the stretch of Minnesota Avenue that includes Boone Elementary.
And that’s after more than a year of conferring with MPD, speaking with frequenters of Triangle Park, and even holding up signs in opposition to drugs and prostitution.
“We don’t see what they’re saying is happening,” Donohue said. “You know, mental health resources. We do see [the harm reduction organization] HIPS coming out and distributing clean meals and things like that, but we’re constantly out and walking the properties and we just don’t see any sort of mental health assistance being offered.”
On Monday, Donohue, with camera in hand, counted among those who followed Bowser along on her tour. Stops included 1525 19th Street SE, a large white abandoned building that Bowser has since pledged to get condemned and secured via DOB.
Since coming into office in early 2025, Donohue has focused on reducing the presence of vacant properties in and around his single-member district. He recounted instances when he requested vacant property inspections, several of which have taken place in the first few months of his term.
As of Jan. 13, 40 properties in the area have been designated as vacant, a dozen of which are either up for sale or being gutted.
“By doing that, it has improved the neighborhood,” Donohue said, “meaning that the vacant property is now either listed on the market, or there’s some activity as far as construction or being demolished.”
Donohue, in collaboration with Davis, has conferred with MPD Sixth District Commander Jaron Hickman about drug activity, including what’s alleged to be taking place in a parking lot near Surprise Grocery on the 2220 block of Minnesota Avenue SE.
Some of the progress, Donohue noted, is documented on videos he’s posted online.
“You’ll see a couple of different updates…where at one point you can literally walk down the street where there’s nobody on the sidewalk,” Donohue told The Informer. “That takes cooperation not only from MPD, but from the community and the property owners.”
While it has yet to be seen the degree to which the Bowser administration will fulfill community members’ demands, Donohue counts among those hopeful that change will come.
“These types of things are definitely not a sprint,” Donohue said. “They take time and it can be frustrating. That’s why it’s important that we have MPD at our ANC meetings so that they can hear from us. Keeping that continual pressure on them, like our commission has, will eventually be fruitful.”