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Historic Lamont St. Collective To Nonviolently Resist Eviction
DC’s longest-standing intentional community will resist US Marshals rather than fall to a profit-first-community-later investment strategy

 

(Washington, DC) – The Lamont Street Collective (LSC), an affordable housing cooperative & creative community space in DC’s Mount Pleasant neighborhood founded in 1975, is under immediate threat of eviction by new building owners: a pair tied to development throughout the DC metro area. With allies from their community and throughout the DC metro area, the LSC intends to nonviolently resist eviction.

 

Paul Repak & Rachel Abramson purchased the LSC in 2015 after the collective’s residents were unable to raise the funds to buy their home themselves. Since buying the home, Repak has refused to negotiate a compromise that would allow the collective to remain in its home of the past four decades. Mount Pleasant, home for decades to DC’s Salvadoran community and a vibrant culture of activism and collective living, has become a hotbed of displacement and gentrification as property values have skyrocketed in the last decade.

 

“There’s a pattern of gentrification here that Mr. Repak is willfully taking part in, displacing more of Mount Pleasant’s history and pushing out yet another group of resource-strained young people who had flocked to one of the few remaining affordable places to live in in an increasingly expensive city,” said Lamont Street Collective resident Devyn Powell. “We've been shocked by the utter callousness he’s shown towards us and what he’s destroying.”

 

Since the LSC was established 1975, hundreds of people have called it home: over the last 40 years it has become a neighborhood icon and cultural fixture. Thanks to the hard work of John Acher (1946-2004), founder of the collective and one of DC’s most prominent socialists, the LSC was a center of leftist political activism and neighborhood advocacy for years. From peace activism to trans rights, local racial injustice to global neoliberalism, the LSC has opened space for the right side of history for more than 40 years.

 

Now, less than a month before an amicable settlement moving the cooperative was to be enacted, landlord Paul Repak has announced his intention to reverse the agreement and instead evict the cooperative and its nine residents.  

 

Lamont Street Collective resident Justin Jacoby Smith said, “Ask a DC native: the city is facing a rising tide of gentrification, and a wave of summer evictions sweeping Southeast DC. The eviction of the LSC is just another example of a profit-seeking investor pushing out a community institution in this city.”

 

Residents of the LSC are now seeking support from sympathetic community members and organizations in the form of turnout for eviction defense.

 

Strategic partners committed to aiding the nonviolent eviction resistance including members of DC Industrial Union 440 & 640, and the Democratic Socialists of America (DC chapter).

 

The order of eviction is now “live,” meaning the Collective can be evicted by US Marshals at the next opportunity. The residents of the Lamont Street Collective and their allies will be prepared to stop the entrance by U.S. Marshals using the tried-and-true eviction resistance tactics of nonviolent civil disobedience.

 

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ABOUT THE LSC

 

The Lamont Street Collective (LSC) is one of DC's oldest intentional communities, devoted to supporting art, activism, social justice, and our community in Mount Pleasant. Since being founded by John Acher in 1974, the LSC has provided affordable housing to artists, activists, and individuals who are passionate about transforming our society for the better.

 

In addition to providing resources & support for our residents to pursue their work, we use the talents & networks of the people we house to open our home as a community space for artists and activists in DC, because we believe in mutual aid. From poetry readings to punk rock shows, union meetings to meditation, we want to make everyone feel at home when they’re visiting us. If you need space for a creative exploration, a radical political meeting, or anything that you feel speaks to our mission and history, contact us. We aim to make our neighborhood, our networks, and our city more engaged and creative.

 

FURTHER BACKGROUND

 

“Sole Collective” -- Washington City Paper

“Inside D.C.’s Affordable Abode for the D.I.Y. Community” -- D.C. Music Download

“A Family You Can Choose” -- Washington Post

 

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CONTACT INFORMATION

 

Cody Valentine 202-701-0316 codyvalentine@gmail.com

Devyn Powell 503-333-0169 devynwpowell@gmail.com

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