Soon after taking over the MLK Deli in Southeast Washington, Tyrone White found himself with an inviting opportunity: opening a concession stand at the new neighborhood arena where the Washington Mystics play home games.
Washington, D.C
D.C.’s poorest ward aims anger at Leonsis as Mystics eye move downtown
Now White fears he could lose the revenue generated by the concession stand — enough to help him open a second deli in another struggling area — if Ted Leonsis relocates the Washington Wizards and Capitals to Virginia and moves Mystics home games downtown to the Capital One Arena.
“I’d have to cut back on jobs and opportunity for the community,” White said the other day at his deli on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, where his menu includes “Marion Barry Salmon Cakes,” a toast to the neighborhood’s favorite former mayor. “It would be devastating.”
As Leonsis and Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) touted the deal for the $65 million arena nearly a decade ago, the Mystics’ billionaire owner talked with passion about creating a new horizon for the neighborhood of Congress Heights in Ward 8, a corner of the city long defined by poverty and violent crime.
But with his announcement that he would shift Mystics games downtown to the Capital One Arena if the Wizards and Capitals relocate to Alexandria, Leonsis is seeking to remove a key attraction that D.C. officials are counting on to help fuel investment and propel the neighborhood’s renaissance.
When it agreed to the deal with the city, Leonsis’s company, Monumental Sports & Entertainment, signed a 19-year lease at the Ward 8 arena, a commitment that included not only Mystics home games but also Wizards practices.
“Our expectation was what it still is — the presence of the Mystics and Monumental was going to be the excitement we were going to build around,” said Monica Ray, president of the Congress Heights Community Training and Development Corp., a nonprofit that has advocated for the redevelopment of St. Elizabeths.
“I’m angry that they think they can get up and leave the promise and potential there,” Ray said. “It feels like Ted has forgotten his commitment to Ward 8. We should not be an afterthought.”
Her disappointment is not isolated. After Leonsis’s announcement, a Ward 8 council candidate, Markus Batchelor, described the Mystics potential move as “a blow” to spurring economic growth “where it’s needed most.” Ron Moten, a veteran Anacostia-based activist, threatened to organize a boycott of Monumental sports franchises and brands unless Leonsis reversed course.
Even if Virginia officials approve Monumental’s plan, the Capitals, Wizards and Mystics would remain where they are until 2028. In addition, the Mystics would maintain their offices and still practice at the Congress Heights arena. The Capital City Go-Go, Monumental’s team in the NBA-affiliated G League, also would continue to play home games in Ward 8.
John Thompson III, senior vice president of Monumental Basketball, said the Mystics need to move downtown because Entertainment and Sports Arena’s 4,200-seat capacity is too small to accommodate the team’s growing popularity. The Mystics won the 2019 WNBA championship on their home court.
Thompson also said that Monumental would remain a pronounced presence in Ward 8, helping community organizations through financial contributions. As part of its agreement with the city, Monumental is required to make $10 million in contributions, an obligation it says it has already exceeded.
“I can’t stress enough that we’re not leaving, there’s still a commitment to the neighborhood,” Thompson said in a phone interview. He added that Monumental would work with the city to “bring other events” to Congress Heights “to help fill the void” if Mystics’ home games move. “Our commitment to the community is not going to change,” he said.
Bowser’s administration, in a statement, said that the city’s contract with Monumental “requires” that the “Mystics play their home games and the Wizards hold their practices at the Entertainment and Sports arena until 2037.
“The District honors its contracts, and we trust and expect our partners to do the same.”
Leonsis’s plan to move the Capitals and Wizards to Alexandria has prompted a wave of concern about the future of downtown Washington, where the 1997 opening of what was then known as the MCI Center spawned a thicket of new office and condominium towers and spurred the opening of bars and restaurants.
As he promoted the new Ward 8 arena in 2018, Leonsis spoke of the development that occurred around Chinatown and Penn Quarter, saying, “Let’s do in Ward 8 what we ended up doing in downtown D.C.”
But the loss of Mystic home games — about 20 in a season — is likely to shrink opportunities in Southeast, including for those who have served prison sentences and who pick up work. When the team plays in the neighborhood, for example, 37 “ambassadors,” most of whom are Ward 8 residents, earn as much as $17.50 an hour greeting fans, cleaning up and driving shuttle buses between the Congress Heights Metro station and the arena, Ray said.
Robin McKinney, 50, a D.C. government clerical worker who lives in Anacostia, makes $25 an hour plus tips driving a shuttle bus on game days — extra income she says she needs to keep up with mortgage payments and support her seven children.
“When the season comes around, you know you have a job,” said McKinney, an elected Ward 8 advisory neighborhood commissioner. “You cannot survive in the District unless you have a full-time and a part-time job. If the Mystics don’t play over here, I’d be out of income.”
In a pavilion next door to the arena known as Sycamore & Oak, 20 Black-owned start-up businesses occupy small shops and sell art, pottery, jewelry, cosmetics and food. On game days, thousands of potential patrons pass through.
“When people are coming and going to the game, they stop here or even just look in,” said Tahneezia Hammond, the owner of Glam Station, a boutique at Sycamore & Oak. “Any exposure is good exposure. It’s good for spreading the word. We want the team to make this more of a destination.”
At the same time, there are also business owners in Congress Heights who say they have not benefited from the Mystics’ presence, nor from development at St. Elizabeths, a sprawling campus that is behind a fence and set back from the neighborhood.
Players Lounge, a bar located on Martin Luther King Jr. SE, has been a Congress Heights fixture for more than 50 years, its luncheon and dinner patrons having included Barry when he was mayor and later when he represented Ward 8 on the D.C. Council.
Steve Thompson, owner of Players, said Mystics fans rarely visit the lounge, a dimly lit joint where the menu includes half smokes, fried chicken and pig’s feet. The walls are decorated with banners celebrating Washington’s football team (before they became the Commanders), and a framed photo of Barry and funeral programs of regulars who have died.
“They drive into the Mystics games and then drive on out, they have no reason to come over here,” Thompson said. “If they left, I don’t think it would affect me. By them being inside the gate, they’re almost segregated from us.”
A ’20-year narrative’
On a September morning in 2015, as they announced plans for the new arena, Bowser and Leonsis stood on a podium on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE, showering each other with praise and talking of a new horizon for Ward 8.
The neighborhood’s “welcoming embrace,” Leonsis told a crowd that included Wizards stars John Wall and Bradley Beal, “made the decision very, very easy on where we would commit and grow and really commit to a 20-year narrative in helping you and working together to make this a fantastically well-developed neighborhood.”
“You’re now a national news story,” Leonsis said as he has boasted of choosing Ward 8 to build the NBA’s “best” practice facility for the Wizards. “We’re all going to work on and we’re all in this together, creating jobs, being able now to attract other businesses to come here and they will create jobs.”
The construction of Entertainment and Sports Arena was a centerpiece of the redevelopment of St. Elizabeths East, an 180-acre campus that also is to be home to a new hospital, retail and restaurants, and nearly 1,000 units of housing, about a third of which have been completed.
Moten, who has helped arrange musical events at Sycamore & Oak, including a Go-Go Santa at Christmastime, said the arena and pavilion made it possible for Ward 8 residents and Washingtonians across the city to think of the neighborhood in new ways.
“It helps to get rid of the stigma that Southeast has been trying to get rid of for years,” he said. “When you’re a new business and you say you’re over by the arena, it gives you credibility. And when the people come, it’s icing on the cake. They see the arena and they see Sycamore & Oak — I like to call it ‘Black Wall Street.’”
Referring to Leonsis, Moten said, “You gave people hope and now you took away hope.”
White, the owner of the MLK Deli, where the walls are lined with framed photos of King, is not ready to give up. He hopes the Mystics stay where they are, and that patrons buying his steak and cheese sandwiches at the arena know his business is owned by someone who grew up in the area and “looks like them.”
“It’s super cool and it motivates other people to see they can do whatever they want,” he said. “It’s bigger than the arena. And it’s deeper than food. It’s the feeling of, ‘We can do anything.’”
The expanded funding aims to make college more affordable for thousands of D.C. students, continuing a program that has already helped nearly 40,000 graduates pursue degrees nationwide.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser went back to school on Thursday. She headed to the gym at Coolidge High School in Northwest to make an announcement that could make college more affordable for eligible D.C. high school students.
Standing at the podium in front of a vibrant mural in the gymnasium, Bowser told the students, “A few weeks ago we got some good news from the United States Congress!”
“Even they can get it right sometimes!” she added.
The news from Capitol Hill was that funding for the 25-year-old D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant program, or DCTAG, has been increased, something Bowser said she’s been working toward for 10 years.
Starting in the 2026-27 academic year, the maximum annual award for students who apply and qualify for the grants will go from $10,000 a year to as much as $15,000, and the overall cap increases from $50,000 to $75,000.
“These are real dollars guys, a real $15,000!” Bowser told the students. “This year alone, 4,500 students were approved for DCTAG, and that’s the highest number that we’ve had in the last five years.”
Since DCTAG was established, Bowser said nearly 40,000 D.C. high school students were serviced through the program, attaining degrees at more than 400 colleges across the country.
Among those who benefited from the DCTAG program was Arturo Evans, a local business owner who grew up in Ward 7 and graduated from D.C.’s Cesar Chavez Public Charter School.
Speaking to the Coolidge students, Evans explained that as a high school student, he didn’t know if his dreams would ever come true.
“Do your homework, go to class, be on time, listen to your teachers,” he said. “Do not let your current situation determine who you can be tomorrow.”
Evans said without the grant money available in the DCTAG program his college prospects would have been “very limited.”
“I probably would have stayed local, probably would have had to go to a community college,” he said.
But he told WTOP, since he applied for and received grant money through the program, “TAG was able to pave the way for me to go ahead and achieve my dreams and go to my dream school,” at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
While he was at UNLV, Evans said his mother’s illness meant he had to return to the District to help care for her. But thanks to help from his DCTAG adviser, he was able to complete his degree before becoming the CEO of his own D.C.-based business.
Among the Coolidge students attending the event was senior Victoria Evans (no relation to the speaker Arturo Evans), who also was in the DCTAG program and serves as the Command Sergeant Major of the Coolidge Junior Army ROTC.
Victoria Evans said she hopes to study medicine, and explained, “I found out about DCTAG through my school counselors and my college and career coordinators.”
Asked about the application process, she said, “It’s not hard at all. I would definitely say go and get the money they’re providing.”
D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton pushed to establish the funding when she introduced the D.C. College Access Act, which passed Congress in 1999. It was designed to address the fact that, since D.C. doesn’t have a state university system, D.C. students had limited access to in-state tuition at public colleges and universities.
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WASHINGTON (7News) — More than six months into the federal law enforcement surge in the District, questions remain about how the Metropolitan Police Department’s level of involvement in joint operations and what information the department tracks to ensure accountability.
Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D – Ward 2), chairwoman of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, held an oversight hearing of three public safety agencies on Wednesday, including MPD.
The bulk of the 10.5-hour meeting focused on testimony from concerned residents and Interim Chief Jeffery Carroll about the police department.
“Interim Chief Carroll’s testimony provided a clearer sense of how the federal surge of officers is managed overall; however, many questions still remain regarding the ongoing investigations into the three federal agency involved shootings and how and where deployment decisions are being made and which agencies are handling arrests,” Pinto said in a statement to 7News.
At the same time, more residents are raising alarms about federal agencies responding to 911 calls. Carroll said it is not new for agencies such as the U.S. Park Police and the U.S. Secret Service to respond to those calls, but residents are concerned that other agencies are reportedly starting to show up as well.
SEE ALSO | DC Council committee holds oversight hearing on MPD
“When we say law enforcement in DC in 2026, who are we talking about, who’s there, what are they doing, what limits and regulations and oversight are they beholden to, and what recourse do residents have?” Bethany Young, director of policy at DC Justice Lab, told 7News.
“If you call 911, MPD is showing up,” Carroll testified Wednesday. “Can other agencies hear those calls that have those radio channels? Absolutely, they can. But MPD is being dispatched a call and MPD is responding.”
“You see now the uneasiness of some people calling for help,” Councilmember Christina Henderson (I – At-Large), responded to Carroll. “No, I definitely understand,” Carroll replied. “I’m not saying it’s a situation that we want to be in or where we want to be, but I want to make sure that we’re transparent and clear on what the state is right now. That’s what the state is.”
Requests for comment were sent to the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office and the mayor’s office about Carroll’s testimony. The mayor did not make herself available for questions at a public event on Thursday.
Washington, D.C
DC Courts create new pathway for people without lawyers to get legal help – WTOP News
Nonlawyers who receive training will now be able to help with civil matters in D.C., as part of a new order issued by D.C. Courts that expands access to legal assistance.
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DC Courts create new pathway for people without lawyers to get legal help
Nonlawyers who receive training will now be able to help with civil matters in D.C., as part of a new order issued by D.C. Courts earlier this month that expands access to legal assistance for people without an attorney.
The rule, scheduled to take effect in April, creates a framework for Community Justice Workers, or nonlawyers who are supervised and trained to offer limited legal assistance through a partnership with legal services organizations.
The step comes after a yearslong assessment into the possible role for nonlawyers in offering certain types of legal help to D.C. residents.
As of 2017, 97% of plaintiffs in paternity and child support cases, and in small estate matters, represent themselves in D.C. Superior Court, according to a 2025 report from the District of Columbia Courts Civil Legal Regulatory Reform Task Force.
“We are facing an extraordinary need,” said Nancy Drane, executive director of D.C.’s Access to Justice Commission. “There are thousands of District residents who are not getting the legal help they need.”
The Community Justice Worker model could be compared to seeing a nurse practitioner in a doctor’s office. Ariel Levinson-Waldman, director of nonprofit Tzedek D.C., said someone who goes through a supervised program would be able to provide help, “just like your nurse practitioner does.”
Tzedek D.C. offers pro bono legal help and financial counseling. But, Levinson-Waldman said, there are thousands of people who are eligible for their services and the work of similar providers, and only a select few are available to help.
“Many of the court’s high-volume dockets are cases where the individual D.C. resident is not getting any help,” he said. “This effort, we saw that as a way to change that, to bring more people into opportunities for access to justice, to bring more resources to the problem.”
Whether it be divorce, custody cases, small claims or child support cases, the stakes are high.
Without an attorney or someone who can help in some way, cases often go “less well than it would have. It impacts their family, their future, their finances, sometimes access to the custody of their children,” Levinson-Waldman said.
In some instances, Drane said people experiencing issues such as eviction or family conflict navigate cases without help from a lawyer because legal help is expensive. Free legal service groups have limited capacities and budgets.
Under the Community Justice Worker model, organizations could either train their own staffs to help or partner with community nonprofits.
“What this would mean, practically, is that we will have more helpers in the community who are trained and authorized to provide certain types of legal help,” Drane said. “The real beauty of Community Justice Workers is that they receive what I would call ‘bite-sized training for bite-sized tasks.’”
Karen Dale, market president and CEO of AmeriHealth Caritas District of Columbia, said people “need assistance, they need support. Having someone by your side to help you navigate with a level of specificity, get you to the right resources in a timely way, should be able to help less lives and families and communities get derailed.”
The approach, Levinson-Waldman said, will provide a formal way for “public spirited” volunteers to help their neighbors.
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© 2026 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
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