Baldwin House is a General Cooperative Association located in the District of Columbia’s Ward 1. They are a limited-equity housing cooperative and community gathering space located next to Howard University and D.C.’s historic Black Broadway / U Street corridor. The building will provide permanently affordable housing to 10 of their community’s most active organizers – all of whom have lived experience navigating and resisting oppression, disinvestment, and neglect, such as surviving homelessness and incarceration – giving them financial stability and peace of mind as they do the hard work of systemic change. The current and incoming tenants share ownership of the property and consider themselves to be “stewards” on behalf of their larger community of Black and brown, poor and working class, housing-insecure and unsheltered, queer and trans neighbors. One floor of the building, as well as their 6,000 square feet of outdoor space, will serve as a hub for their larger community to organize and show up for one another through mutual aid. The site has already been used for neighborhood parties to rally together for this project, free stores, organizing meetings of the Ward 1 Mutual Aid Network, and some small-scale gardening.
Baldwin House Cooperative Association seeks to develop a Sacred Place on the north side of the building, with street and sidewalk frontage to the east, that will be open to residents and community members.
