NoMa Business Improvement District is working to make NoMa D.C.’s next work live play destination. However, NoMa’s longtime community members said they are concerned with crime and feel they are being pushed out of the neighborhood. 

“Throughout the years, I have definitely seen change.. they kinda kicked us Black folks out,” he said. “I’m one of the blessed ones that could come back,” said NoMa native Ali Devoe.

According to the NoMa Business Improvement District, or “NoMa BID”, NoMa is one of D.C. 's fastest growing neighborhoods.

NoMa BID is a nonprofit organization that was founded in 2007 with a mission to create a clean, safe and welcoming neighborhood to promote growth and development in the area.

“I started working here about 6 years ago and none of this was here.” NoMa BID Driver Supervisor, Andre Smith, said pointing to the multiple apartment complexes and office spaces surrounding him. 

On their site NoMa BID says, “NoMa is not just a physical place or a place on a map, bounded by roads and railways, but also a conceptual place in peoples’ minds and in their homes. We’re building a name for the neighborhood that is synonymous with fun, with play, with arts, and with culture”

In 2018, NoMa BID utilized funding to create art displays in the underpasses in the neighborhood. The construction of this art displaced the homeless people living in encampments in the underpass. 

A year later NoMa BID’s president, Robin-Eve Jasper, wrote an open letter to the community expressing their concern with the underpass encampments. 

“The NoMa BID wishes to share publicly the sentiment expressed in an increasing volume of complaints we are receiving from neighbors in NoMa:,” Jasper said. “Namely, that conditions are worsening at the encampments in the underpasses and on First Street NE, and that people are worried about their ability to safely traverse these public spaces.”

In October 2021, the encampments were removed. Now, the underpasses are filled with multiple concrete blocks to stop homeless people from living in the space. 

The Western Regional Advocacy Project writer, Jonathan says that the issue with acts like this are that they do not work to solve issues, but simply to remove them from their neighborhoods. 

“NoMa BID did nothing to end homelessness, or combat high housing prices and low wages. Rather, the hyper-local focus of BIDs simply moves the problem outside of its area,” he said. 

The starting price for a studio apartment at Market House, a recently-built apartment building across the street from the Noma-Gallaudet Station underpass, is $2,115.

Ali Devoe said that he is grateful to be able to still reside in the area as the cost of living has increased. 

Just a year after NoMa BID’s inception, the 2008 recession pushed Devoe and many of his community members out of D.C..

For the next decade Devoe would commute to NoMa for the job opportunities, but resided in a more affordable neighborhood in Petworth.

Since he left the NoMa neighborhood in 2008 he says his “chocolate city” has turned into a “swirl”

“In 08, walking outside you would probably see a handful of white people, now that’s damn near all you see,” Devoe  said

Devoe does security for Wunder Garten, a German themed-beer garden in NoMa. 

He says that on his walks home from work he has flashbacks to his childhood days of walking to his childhood apartment, walking to his favorite carryout spot and the Greyhound bus station that was across the street from Wunder Garten.

Now, his apartment, the carry out spot and the Greyhound bus station are all gone. 

The old Greyhound bus station, that Devoe says was filled with houseless people, is now a newly renovated Marriott hotel and apartment complex. 

“It’s a crazy time we’re living in man” he said shaking his head. “I don’t even know when they started calling it NoMa”

Around the corner from Wunder Garten two senior NoMa residents said that crime was their biggest concern. 

One of the residents, Ms. Rose, said that you can expect a police car parked on the corner by 6 p.m. everyday. 

“I don’t even go to the ATM outside anymore,” she said. “You got to be observant for yourself.”

Her friend, who asked not to be named, said that he sat in the same spot last week and watched a passenger assault a taxi-driver and steal his car. 

Both expressed that they wanted more to be done about the crime in the neighborhood, but felt that the police were not doing enough.

As NoMa BID looks to continue their strategic plan, “Making NoMa Magnetic” these long-time residents believe that until crime is addressed, businesses won’t be able to thrive. 

“They gonna get rid of that Harris Teeter because it’s getting robbed too much, then they gonna put a new store in there and they gonna rob that store too,” Ms. Rose said.