A Washington Informer Story
Progress is being made on the Barry Farm redevelopment according to leaders of the organizations reinventing the Ward 8 neighborhood located in Southeast D.C.
Forty residents gathered at the R.I.S.E. Demonstration Center on the campus of St. Elizabeths East on Aug. 9 to hear leaders of the Barry Farm effort talk about the latest developments. The meeting was convened by the 8C advisory neighborhood commission (ANC).
“A lot of residents aren’t aware of the development process,” said Salim Adofo, chairman of 8C ANC.
Barry Farm is located east of the Anacostia River and bounded by the Southeast Freeway to the northwest, Suitland Parkway to the northeast and east, and St. Elizabeths Hospital to the South. The neighborhood was founded as a post-Civil War settlement for Blacks established by the Freedmen’s Bureau. In the 1940s, the neighborhood became the site for Barry Farm Dwellings, built by the National Capital Housing Authority. The preceding decades saw Barry Farm become more populated with impoverished residents.
However, in 2006, the District government came up with a proposal—the Barry Farm, Park Chester, Wade Road Development Plan—that was designed to upgrade the living standards of the neighborhood in conjunction with the Barry Farm Advisory Committee to “create a vibrant mixed-income neighborhood where residents have quality housing options, real economic opportunities and access to appropriate human services for children and adults.”
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