In 2023, with the help of over 600 people, Baldwin House bought an apartment building in Washington, DC's Columbia Heights—one of the fastest gentrifying neighborhoods in the country. Now we need your help to ensure Baldwin House can complete its transformation into a permanent community institution.

Baldwin House is an affordable housing cooperative and mutual aid hub located near Howard University and the U Street Corridor, a historic center of Black culture and social change.

Born from a Ward One Mutual Aid reading group, neighborhood-based organizers came together to fight the rapid gentrification hurting the community and create quality, permanently affordable housing for local community organizers, of which current co-op members (who we refer to as tenant stewards) all identify as BIPOC and many as queer and trans.

When we were organizing to buy the building, we were told that it was pretty much impossible to raise the funds we needed. But in the words of James Baldwin,

“Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it”

And so through people power and solidarity, we bought the building and have since used the space for community celebrations, retreats, biweekly food distributions, and more. Yet, we continue to come up against systems of oppression and extraction that make it very difficult to enable projects like Baldwin House. So we are coming back to our community with an ask to secure a new, permanent bank loan and construct the mutual aid hub in the basement of the building.

Our goals are to:

Raise $500,000 by May 5, 2026 to pay off our $2 million acquisition loan and move to a $1.1 million, long-term mortgage. (Any leftover funds that remain after the loan transition will go to supporting the mutual aid hub)
Raise another $300,000 by Fall 2026 to construct our mutual aid hub, a community center designed in a participatory and consensus-based design process with community members, complete with a free store, industrial kitchen, maker’s space, and multipurpose room.
Raise $2,000 in monthly donations by 2027 to sustain the mutual aid hub operations including a commercial lease of the basement of the property.

With your help, we can save the creation of a vital place for community members to feel belonging and be part of a model of collective living that allows communities the safety to grow, create, and thrive. More information about our financing specifics is available in our Baldwin House Overview Document.

Note: If you are planning a big one-time contribution (more than $1,000), please contact us at baldwinhousecoop@gmail.com. We can avoid fees by having you donate via ACH/wire transfer or with a DAF!

Once constructed, our Mutual Aid Hub will offer:

A free store, pantry, and fridge
A community kitchen
A multipurpose room for classes, meditations, & informal gatherings
A community garden
Community health and wellness programs
A tool library and makers space
Regular neighborhood celebrations
…and more!!

This Mutual Aid Hub design was created in a participatory and consensus-based design process with community members

These programs will be led by and for our neighbors and community members, and we are already building a system to make these efforts not only sustainable but part of the fabric of our neighborhood.

This project is not just about housing. When we achieve financial autonomy, tenant stewards and our broader community of organizers within Ward One Mutual Aid and beyond can focus more on efforts like creating neighborhood programs to engage local youth, strategizing to fight displacement across DC, exemplifying eco-friendly and sustainable living, and so much more. Baldwin House will not be insulated from the rest of our DC community, but will serve as a canvas on which our partners in the community can express their visions for what the neighborhood and a better world can be.

Now more than ever, intersecting oppressive systems are working to divide and disempower us, and folks are looking for a way to build community and fill in the gaps. Because of this, Baldwin House remains committed to driving change in our communities. Corporations continue to extract labor from the masses, particularly exploiting Black and brown folks, widening the wealth gap, and serially disinvesting in the wellbeing of working-class community members. COVID-19 exacerbated and highlighted the disparities in how working people can access their basic needs. Today, as the government guts benefits and social safety programs while ICE and police ramp up their surveillance and kidnapping of our community members, the gap between the services and needs of our community grows. Baldwin House is a truly sustainable response to community needs that is led by those most impacted; we are reclaiming and transforming our space to be a resource for the community, and we need your partnership to bring this vision to life.

Our biweekly mutual aid distribution.

By becoming a donor, you will be participating in the Solidarity Economy, a growing movement that is liberating our collective communities by building a just and sustainable economy where we prioritize people and the planet over endless profit and growth. As a tenant-owned cooperative that centers affordability, collective decision making, mutual aid, and community participation, Baldwin House is already a beacon of what the Solidarity Economy can offer. Will you join us and/or ask your neighbors, friends, and family to invest in the stewardship of this affordable housing and community space?

We can’t wait to continue seeing the ways this community blossoms, together. From the bottom of our hearts- thank you for your support and solidarity.

Further Background on Baldwin House

From 2021 - 2023, countless neighbors organized together to successfully purchase the small apartment building now known as Baldwin House. To buy the building, we used a unique DC law called the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act or TOPA. TOPA forces landlords to come to the table with tenants, but does not provide funding or address market-driven housing prices, leaving most TOPA projects hamstrung by DC’s astronomical land prices. We overcame this obstacle through resounding community support with over 600 neighbors and friends donating or loaning us money, raising almost $2 million. Through that support, we were able to get a short-term bank loan — one that now is coming due in just a few months.

Since 2023, we’ve partnered with a local trade school on the residential renovations, brought in community members to inform the design of the mutual aid hub, and provided public offerings such as biweekly food distribution, political education, and a community garden. Together, our neighbors have spent countless hours building a permanent community space in a neighborhood that has experienced years of displacement.

Learn more in our Baldwin House Overview Document and at https://baldwin-house.org/, and subscribe to our newsletter at baldwinhouse.substack.com to stay in touch with us.

Contributions through our GiveButter are tax-deductible. You will be emailed an acknowledgement letter of your donation as part of your Givebutter receipt.

Build a housing co-op and mutual aid hub in DC!

Support Baldwin House to invest in community care and disrupt displacement.