Skip to content

NoMa Business Improvement District Launches Clean Campaign

Washington, D.C., October 24, 2007… The NoMa (North of Massachusetts Avenue) Business Improvement District has launched its Clean Campaign for the 35-block area just north of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. The NoMa BID has partnered with the Washington-based Gospel Rescue Ministries’ “Ready to Work” program to provide street and sidewalk cleaning services seven days a week.The program was officially launched near the historic Gales School. The District government is investing $7 million in the former public school building to convert it to a shelter for women. Speakers included Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), D.C. Council member Harry Thomas (D-Ward 5), and Directors of D.C.’s Department of Public Works and Department of Human Services. 

The Ready to Work program is a transitional job program that helps keep homeless men and women off the streets by providing them housing, health care, drug treatment, job training, and employment. Dozens of program participants are currently working for the Capitol Hill, Adams Morgan, and Mt. Vernon Triangle BIDs. “Ready to Work has had great success in helping to transform the lives of our city’s most needy residents,” said Elizabeth Price, President of the NoMa BID. “We think this new partnership is a win-win: NoMa is investing in the community and the community is investing in NoMa.”

The Clean Campaign includes a daily team of six trainees and a supervisor. The team canvasses the area twice a day removing litter, weeds, graffiti, sediment, and debris from the streets and sidewalks. In the first two weeks of the effort, over 1,200 bags of trash and debris were collected. “The Clean Campaign represents a serious and substantial investment on the part of NoMa property owners to bring this area up to a new standard of cleanliness,” said Merrit Drucker, Director of Operations for the NoMA BID. “We are working closely with District agencies to upgrade the appearance of the neighborhood as quickly as possible.”

“Today’s Clean Campaign launch will help transform lives and a D.C. neighborhood at the same time,” said Congresswoman Norton. “With the help of its Business Improvement District, only seven months old, NoMA is rapidly emerging as one of D.C.’s most exciting new neighborhoods. Both the Ready to Work program and the renovation of the historic Gales School demonstrate how business, local government, and faith-based organizations are working together to provide opportunities for homeless individuals to regain their dignity and independence.”

NoMa is an exciting emerging mixed-use neighborhood north of the U.S. Capitol and Union Station in the Nation’s capital. Private developers are investing more than $1 billion this year alone with plans to develop over 20 million square feet of office, residential, hotel, and retail space in the area covered by the NoMa BID over the next 20 years. For more information about the BID, including a development pipeline map, see the BID Website at http://nomabid.wpengine.com.

Call to Artists: NoMa in Color Mural Festival

X