(Washington, DC) — Three new Clean Team service program grants are being awarded this month and services will hit the streets in August in the Deanwood, Congress Heights, and North Capitol Main Street areas. Already there are several other Clean Teams around the city who continue to make quite an impact on public space maintenance in commercial districts city streets by removing litter, graffiti, stickers, posters, and illegal signage, and also caring for tree boxes.

The ultimate goal of Clean Team services is to provide visible results—specifically cleaner streets, sidewalks, and storefronts in neighborhood business districts in order to stimulate economic development by attracting more customers and creating further incentive to locate retail in neighborhoods.

From August 2008 through May 2009, Clean Teams have collected 80,000 bags of debris; removed 6,000 illegal signs/posters and 2,000 graffiti markings; and provided routine maintenance of 3,000 treeboxes. 

Because of these services, commercial districts neighborhoods with neighborhood serving and destination evening retail, dining, and entertainment are recognizing a much higher customer comfort level, and businesses are operating with a higher level of confidence. Clean team services have been particularly beneficial in commercial districts with high volume evening and weekend activity.

Clean Team services are provided by BID Litter Cleanup Assistance Program Grant funding, which supports clean teams in corridors that do not have commercial density to fully fund a standard Business Improvement District (BID) operation through the self-taxing mechanism. The funding helps ensure that commercial corridors benefit from cleaning and landscaping services that contribute to economically sustainable, safer neighborhoods.

The service-delivery scope for the participating grantees is as follows:

Mount Vernon Triangle CID: 7-day coverage through crew expansion
Adams Morgan BID: 7-day coverage through crew expansion
Barracks Row Main Street: Weekend coverage through crew expansion (weekday service provided by Capitol Hill BID)
H Street Main Street: 6-day coverage, including evenings in the A&E District
Shaw Main Street: 7-day coverage
Dupont Circle Main Street: 5-day coverage
Deanwood Main Street: 5-day coverage beginning July 2009
Congress Heights Main Street: 5-day coverage beginning July 2009
North Capitol Main Street: 5-day coverage beginning July 2009

A comparable program is operating under the Ward 4 BID Demonstration Program, which provides services to Kennedy Street and part of Georgia Avenue. A clean team service was launched for the Rhode Island Avenue Improvement Corridor (Ward 5) in June 2009.

Clean team services are part of the District’s strategy to re-energize and recast neighborhood commercial districts into thriving and economically productive corridors.