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Okay, today is June 24th, 2023. We're at Columbia Heights Festival. This is Dan Kerr. Could you tell us your name? Yes, my name is Lori Preheim. And could you tell us about your relationship to Columbia Heights? Sure. I've lived in the Columbia Heights area since 1992. I came as a full-time volunteer. And I worked here both in the Shaw area as well as in Adams-Morgan area with Academy of Hope. It was a GED program for adults and so it was really rewarding to work with the adults who were, you know, dropped out of school for one reason or another and see them succeed and get their high school diploma and go on to work. So it was very rewarding. And the area was very different at the time when we came. So I live right here a half block away, 13th and Kenyon. And so that was before Target, before the metro. There were gardens in the area. And 16th Street was kind of the divide. So east of 16th Street was mostly African American, and west of 16th Street was mostly Hispanic. And so it was a very, very different world than it is today with all the gentrification and everything. Wow.

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Wow. And so what brought you to this particular neighborhood when you moved? Yeah, I was living in a volunteer house. So 13th and Kenyon right there had a Menite voluntary service house. So everybody in the house were volunteering at different organizations in the area. And so we came together, you know, sign up for a year. I ended up staying three years as a volunteer because I loved it so much. And about five of us moved out together to Gerard Street, and we continued to live in community, kind of like what we were in the volunteer house, and continued to eat together, and do retreats and everything together. So it became a lifetime community, and everybody doing, working with nonprofits in the area, different schools. Now I'm a teacher at Coolidge High School, and I worked at Berea Public Charter School for 20, almost 25 years, working with immigrant families. Also, we had English classes, we had classes, early childhood classes. So really it was about keeping families together, going to school, getting their diplomas, learning English, being able to make their way in the community, talk to their doctor, use the public transportation, and be active in their child's school, in the PTA, and volunteer in the child's school. So it was really about parent and child interactions And making sure their kids were successful in school. So we had a zero to five program. The teachers would prepare them to go into school. And so all of our kids, the teachers who received our kids said that they were way ahead of all the other kids and were really good and they could tell a big difference that they had been in the early childhood program. And the parents had been very active with their child's school as well. That's great. Could you tell me a little bit more about the two houses that you lived in? The first one and the one in Gerrard. Yeah, sure, absolutely. So it was right here, 1302 Kenyon Street. So again, it was a volunteer house. So every year they had volunteers coming and working in the community. They actually had two houses. They had another house right across the street here from the school. And so altogether there was about 14 volunteers that worked in the area, doing full time service, full time jobs.

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And were they from all over? They were from all over the United States. I'm trying to think if there are any international, mostly from the United States. Most of them coming straight from college and their first work experience. And many stayed to even start their own non-profits or work at other non-profits in the area. Things like Bread for the City and Family Place, which are all organization found, Academy Hope, as I mentioned. City was a tech organization. And so that provided sort of low-cost tech support for all the nonprofits. Yeah, so five of us, again, moved out to Gerard Street and continued sort of the model of community and continue this 25 years later. So I came in 1992. So since 1992, We're still doing community and working in the community and trying to make DC, you know. And are you still on Girard? No, now I'm actually, I bought a house up on Jefferson, 2nd and Jefferson. So after years of living, you know, I lived on Girard Street for a long time. And then on Spring Place for many years. So always within the area.

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Just the five of you at Gerard Street? Yeah, five of eight of us moved out together. I see. Yeah. And Ddd a lot of your social life revolve around the house? Yeah, of course.

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What were some of the other places that were important? Or tell us about it. Oh, Ben and Jerry's. We got a small stipend. We got $35 a month. So I used at least half of my stipend every month at Ben and Jerry's in Ams Morgan, which is now City Bikes. They moved on to another location. We've really seen the whole neighborhood change so much at the time here. 35 bucks a month. Yeah. You basically didn't you had your place that was. Yeah, they paid for health insurance and travel and all that kind of thing. Everything was paid for.

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Yeah. And so you'd cook and eat together. That's right. So there are other volunteer organizations like the Lutherans, Jesuits. There were different organizations around that also had volunteer houses. Okay. Yeah. And you would socialize with them as well too? Yeah. And just, you know, I worked with adults. So, you know, we would hang out with the adults. We go dancing and everything. That taught me a lot. They couldn't believe I didn't know how to fry chicken, so they taught me how to fry chicken.

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And where would you dance? I cooked southern food, cooked collard greens, downtown. Okay. Yeah, they were mostly African-American, so we'd go down to downtown area where there are dance places. Neat. And we'd give them different experiences. We took them to the beach and various things. So yeah. Yeah. Great. Do you remember any of your favorite dance clubs? Oh, back then I couldn't even tell you what they were called. Now I'm with mostly the Hispanic community. So we go to the Hispanic places around the area. Yeah.

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And you learn to dance, the different dances through. Yeah, salsa, merengue, bachata, everything. What drew me to DC and kept me here is the diversity. I really like the diversity. You see people from all over the world, lots of cultures and I think you know bridging the gap between cultures is kind of one of the things I've enjoyed working in education. So when students are in the classroom together, help each other, talk to each other, that one-on-one interaction is what is gonna decrease any kind of tension between the two cultures or various cultures and increase just understanding of different foods and ways of doing things and opens people's eyes a lot and makes them lifelong than reaching out and intermixing, making friends from different places. Because when you first got here, there was a lot of division between the two groups. OK, between the African-American and the Latino groups? Yeah, yeah, quite a bit. They didn't mix very much. And you see a lot more now. But at that time, they didn't very, very little. And there's some tension, different, a little bit of violence between the groups as you, you know, can imagine.

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Okay. Now, was that around the Mount Pleasant uprising or when was that? Yeah. In 1902 or? Yeah. Yeah, Mount Pleasant I think was, I mean there were different times when there were different uprisings and I can't tell you the exact years. Sorry, I'm not very good at referring to years. But yeah, there was definitely, you know, there's still to this day even gangs and things and you know, you can see, I work at a high school now, so you can see or you hear about different things. But again, people are making friends, they're intermixing, they're, you know, I'm a Spanish teacher now, so it's fun to see the different cultures and stuff, make friends.

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Yeah. Could you tell us some more about, you talked about the role of gentrification in the neighborhood. Could you talk about your thoughts on that? Yeah. So back in 92, every block had 10 houses that were boarded up. Windows boarded up, houses boarded up, houses falling apart. And so there was a time at which the government was doing basically a lottery. And you could get an entire house for like $250. You had to sign an agreement to renovate it, live there at least five years, and then the house was yours. So I had some friends that actually did that. That's how we ended up on Spring Place, was they got a house that, you know, a lot of those board houses, the particular house that they got had drug paraphernalia in the basement, things like that. So, you know, gentrification is both good and some difficulties with it. You see lots of now nice parks and things are looking, lots of stores. At that time you didn't have any place that you could shop. There were only like corner stores that you could get, you know. They, of course, always sold alcohol, which contributed to kind of a problem for anybody who had trouble with that. But they also sold groceries and things. And now, you know, we have Target and various other things so it's really really changed a lot so and things of the violence has gone down quite a bit. Back then like year two or so there were drive-by shootings that were happening I think hit the national news also in the Maryland Virginia area there was just a man and a teenager were randomly shooting people at gas stations and things. Yeah. So, you know, at that time, you couldn't carry a wallet, a purse, or anything. You would likely to get mugged. So if you did, you had to carry it hidden, or you had to maybe wear a backpack with it. So I never, ever would carry a purse. So now you can walk around with your cell phone and purses and everything and it's less likely that anything will happen. But back then, you had to be really, really careful. So some things like that are better. I work with non-profits and I work with low-income and I work with immigrants. They're all getting pushed out. Not even the teachers at our school can afford to buy a house in DC. So everybody's getting pushed out to Maryland, mostly to Maryland. So that's hard to see. People that have lived here for a long time can't afford it anymore. Landlords will say, hey, we're going to renovate the building and then basically pay people to leave. And then they can't afford to even go back into that previous building because it's too expensive for them. So it's hard to see people and generations who have been here can't live here anymore. Not even, like I said, not even teachers can afford to live here. So that's the hard part. So I really would support any kind of housing that is mixed income housing. So Maria Partners with Mary Center and they had a project up on George Avenue that was a mixed housing. So that kind of thing, those kind of initiatives are really important. Manna also did a lot of renovations where they trained people how to renovate houses and then did cooperatives so people could buy into the cooperative and affordable housing. So all those kinds of projects are so important. And I would really hate to see that immigrants and African Americans, low income, can't afford to live here anymore would be sad because there's so many services. D.C. has the most services for those populations in the entire United States. And so if you move to Maryland, all of a sudden you don't have access to quite a few of them. So families can really feel it, who really need all the services, can make their lives a lot better. If they have to move out because of not being able to afford the housing, they don't have access then also to all the services. So, you know, really that's the difficult side of the gentrification. Could you tell us a little bit about your hopes for the future of the neighborhood? Yeah, absolutely. I would say that to continue seeing the diversity and continue to see people, how affordable housing for people and jobs for people where they don't have to travel an hour and a half to get there and schools where they can get a good education. So that's my hope. There's, like I said, lots of nonprofits around doing good work and that those can continue helping and serving the people that really need help. And that can really make a huge difference in their lives. So, you know, gentrification's happening. Things are looking nice. Things are improving. Lots of businesses and things like that, which is really nice. But I don't want to lose, you know, the kind of diversity that we've had all these years.

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Thank you. Any last thoughts you'd like to share about Columbia Heights? Yeah. Let's see. Oh, one of my favorite memories was I remember just getting here and going into a mom and pop little shop that was a little restaurant. Basically, it's the size of the first floor of a row house kind of thing. And so, you know, new to the city, so walk in, so okay, looking at the menu, and order something from the menu, and the cook's like, nope, we don't have that. Okay, I'm like, all right, look at, order another thing. Nope, we don't have that. Like, went through three things, and all of a sudden, somebody local came in, and he's like, what'd you make today? And she told him the three dishes that she had made that day, and he ordered one of those three dishes, and we're like, oh, OK. So that was one of my favorite memories is just learning the ropes and, you know, the culture and how things work. It's like, all right, all right, got it. Don't need a menu. Just ask what she made that day. That's a great story. All right. Well, Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you.