LISTEN TO APRIL GOGGANS:
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After three years of organizing and a two-year rent strike, residents at Marbury Plaza have won a major victory. The owner of the 672 unit building located in southeast D.C., the Lightstone Group, has agreed to provide $5 million for repairs to the property.
The Washington Post reported that the funds will be used “to repair or replace roofs and heating, air-conditioning, hot water and building-access systems. New windows will be installed throughout the complex, which includes two towers and several garden-style apartment buildings… A walk-through of the complex in 2008 by building inspectors and the tenants’ association found about 825 housing code violations, the association said, including the presence of mold and widespread electrical outages.”
April Goggans is president of the Marbury Plaza Concerned Tenants’ Association. In addition to being a mom and holding down a full-time job with the federal government, Goggans said she sometimes spends as much as 40 hours a week working on tenant issues. Goggans’ duties include: maintaining tenant files (“my whole house is kind of an office to the tenant association”); filing Freedom of Information of Act requests; meeting with lawyers, as well as writing briefs and doing legal research (Goggans, who is not a lawyer, purchased law books); memorizing D.C. Housing Codes; following up with numerous D.C. agencies; and fundraising.
On the fundraising front, the Marbury Plaza Concerned Tenants’ Association is hosting its 2nd Annual Tenant Choice Awards on Friday, September 17, 2010 at 7:00 PM at THEARC Theater located at 1901 Mississippi Ave, SE, Washington, DC 20020. Tickets are $10 in advance (+ $2 if purchased online) and $15 at the door. For more information call (202) 459-4660. Among those being honored at the Tenant Choice Awards is Linda Leaks of Empower DC, who I interviewed yesterday.
With the claims against the Lightstone Group settled, the “association can do more of the things traditionally done by tenant associations,” said Goggans. She foresees a day when the association will bring community services into Marbury Plaza, provide programs for the children and the elderly, offer scholarships, as well as courses in financial literacy, and much more.
While there is much to celebrate at Marbury Plaza, there are still some unresolved issues. According to Goggans, the Lightstone Group, which purchased the building in 2003, took out approximately $14 million in loans in order to make repairs on the complex, but that money went to investors instead of being used for repairs to the apartment complex.
Goggans, who moved with her daughter from Colorado in October 2006, had no idea that she would become a leading tenant organizer. “It took a personal commitment far and above anything I thought it would be at the time,” she said.
I asked Goggans what gives her the drive to do this work. She said, “[I]t’s simply a matter of justice. I mean, I would be totally remiss and negligent in my duty as a human being to allow the situation at Marbury Plaza to continue. And I also see the value in our fight [which] mirrors so many fights around the city and even that of the nation. That hopefully if we make some victories and some strides… it will benefit the lives of tenants all over. So I think that while I work – and we work – here at Marbury Plaza, we work in solidarity with those who struggle with the same issue all over the country, and especially here in the District.”