FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

November 19, 2011

CONTACT: Ray Valentine Ph. 202-417-4483

Email: freefranklindc@gmail.com

Breaking: DC Community Members Take Over Franklin School in Solidarity with Occupy Movement
"Free Franklin" Action Seeks to Reclaim Abandoned Building for Community Use
WASHINGTON, D.C. - At 2:00pm today, a group of DC community members going by the

namefiFree Franklin" entered and occupied the vacant Franklin School building in downtown th Washington, DC at 13 and K St NW. Protesting the lack of housing for the city's homeless, Free Franklin seeks to demonstrate the act of occupation as a means of redistributing resources to meet community needs. Following a festive and roving puppet cabaret highlighting social movement struggles in DC,Free Franklin unveiled the surprise occupation of the former homeless shelter. A public statement on the action is available in its entirety at: freefranklindc.blogspot.com

"We have occupied Franklin School because what DC needs now is community resources under community control, not austerity measures," says PERSON, speaking from the inside of Franklin School. In reference to the Fenty Administration's closing of Franklin Shelter in 2008, Free Franklin's public statement reads, "the closure of Franklin Shelter in 2008 was not an isolated incident; it is part of a wave of austerity measures and structural adjustment policies that are mirrored all over the U.S. and globally, and represents the worst of the policies of capitalism pushed by the 1%." The group plans to remain in Franklin School indefinitely, and has called for a community meeting on Monday, November 21, at 6:30 at Asbury United Methodist Church (11 th and K St NW) for public consultation on potential uses of the downtown property. "This building is not surplus, and we won't allow the city to give it away or turn it into a boutique hotel. The community needs for Franklin are as endless as the possibilities," said Free Franklinspokesperson Abigail De Roberts. More information on the action can be found on the Free Franklin blog: freefranklindc.blogspot.com To coordinate interviews with a spokesperson inside the Franklin School building, please contact Ray Valentine at 202-417-4483 or freefranklindc@gmail.com On Twitter see: @freefranklindc

STATEMENT FROM FREE FRANKLIN!

On November 19th , a group working to Free Franklin occupied the vacant Franklin School building at 13 th and K St in NW Washington, DC. Inspired by and participating in the Occupy/Liberate/De-colonize movements taking root across the country, we are a group of organizers, activists, and DC community members involved in local struggles around affordable housing, homelessness, and many other movements. The occupation of Franklin School is an action in solidarity with this movement and a call for justice from the 99% here in DC! The Franklin School building, owned by the city, has been vacant since late September 2008 when the DC government closed the homeless shelter that was housed there right before the beginning of hypothermia season. Despite promises that all of the residents would be given permanent housing, the majority wound up in other over-crowded shelters away from downtown, far from physical and mental health care and other needed services, or were put out onto the street. Three years later the city continues to break its promises to house and shelter DC residents, under-funding housing and shelter programs, including cutting $3 million from services for DC's 6,500 homeless individuals and $20 million for affordable housing last year alone. The DC government refuses to ensure the most basic human right to housing for everyone in our community.
The closure of Franklin Shelter was not an isolated incident; it is part of a wave of austerity measures and structural adjustment policies that are mirrored all over the U.S. and globally, the policies of capitalism pushed by the 1 %. Structural adjustment locally and nationally has removed land, plants, buildings, and other community resources from the hands of the people into corporate control. The U.S. government spends trillions of dollars to perpetuate imperialist wars and occupations overseas, and to unjustly imprison millions of people, criminalizing the activities of immigrants and people of color, in a ballooning prison system. Then, the federal and local governments push austerity measures that most impact poor and working class people by slashing funding for basic services for our communities. The crisis of homelessness in DC is part of a larger crisis of affordable housing, with years of rampant gentrification displacing low-income people of color from their homes and from the city, and the foreclosure crisis caused by unchecked banks who continue to rake in record profits while more and more families lose their homes.

Our government has failed to address this crisis, so we are taking action to do it ourselves. The Occupy movement decries the corporate control of our government, which includes corporate control of services like housing, education, and healthcare through ever increasing privatization, creating a system where basic human needs are seen only as potential for profit, denied to those who can't afford the price. But now, communities are fighting back! By occupying public spaces, de-comodifying land, redistributing resources, and practicing direct democracy, we can provide for each other and our communities, and begin to build the more just world that we envision. The Franklin building is a public building that belongs to the people of DC and must be put to use for the benefit of the community to meet the greatest community need. It is not surplus, and the people of DC will not allow the government to give it away or sell it to private developers to tum it into a boutique hotel! DC residents are denied statehood and budget autonomy, a disenfranchisement fueled by racism, and are acutely aware of the importance of having control over our own resources. Therefore, we demand Franklin be put to more productive use and a genuinely participatory process for DC communities to determine what is most needed. We can't forget that the building first became a homeless shelter thanks to an occupation carried out in 2002 by a community group actively taking control of public property to put it to use for the public good! We invite DC community members who have a stake in and are interested in the future ofthe Franklin building to come to a public meeting on Monday, November 21 S t, at 6:30 PM, at Asbury United Methodist Church (11th and K St NW) to talk about community needs and your vision for the future of the Franklin building.. It could be re-opened as a homeless shelter or drop-in site (there was previously a proposal made by former residents to do sweat equity to fix it up), an adult education center, a public school, a free health clinic, a community center, street legal clinic, etc. Bring your ideas and vision for how to develop this space under community control, and in collaboration with growing movements for social and economic justice in DC and beyond! We call on other members of the Occupy movement, in Washington, DC and around the world, to join us in reclaiming unused spaces. We will not allow a few people to determine the use of our community property. We demand a truly participatory process and we will model the future we believe is possible.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FRANKLIN BUILDING

Since September of 2008 the Franklin building has been shuttered with no real prospect of being made available for community use. However, the building has a long history of housing services for the public. The Franklin building started as the Franklin School in 1869. Its fourteen classrooms served as a model for the city's new public school system. It also housed the offices of the Superintendent and the Board of Trustees, as well as the first high school and first Normal School for white students. The exterior of Franklin was restored in 1992. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places and has been designated as a National Historic Landmark. In August 2002, when the building had been boarded up for 20 years, a coalition for the homeless called Mayday DC occupied the Franklin School to advocate for its opening as an emergency hypothermia shelter. This effort was successful, and the School was opened as a shelter. The shelter was extended through the spring and early summer due to the desperate need by the homeless in Ward 2. The city then closed the Franklin School entirely and intended to sell it to private condominium developers, leaving more than 160 people with no shelter or housing at all. In July 2003, Mayday DC, T.R.LB.E., and the Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington again occupied the building to oppose the sale and promote community use of the building. As a result of the direct actions, Mayor Anthony Williams announced that the Franklin School would again be used as an emergency hypothermia shelter with 160 beds for families. On September 16,2008, the D.C. Council passed emergency legislation requiring the Mayor to certify to the Council that no fewer than 300 men had been placed into housing before the closure of Franklin Shelter could take place. Until that happened, the Council mandated that Franklin continue its operations as a 300 person shelter. The legislation also required to provide the Council "with a report on any proposed closing of the Franklin Shelter that includes a description of the current capacity, current availability, and location of replacement shelter space, and the ability to seasonally increase capacity to reduce incidences of hypothermia among the homeless population prior to closing the Franklin Shelter. " During this period, the DC Council also unanimously agreed that adequate shelter capacity is a priority for D.C. and expressed a growing mistrust of the Administration's lack of transparency in implementing its Housing First program and closing the last low-barrier downtown shelter. In spite of all this, Mayor Adrian Fenty moved rapidly to close Franklin Shelter ahead of schedule, ignoring the requirements of the City Council's emergency legislation and leaving over 100 former residents with nowhere to go. Since then, the building has sat fallow.