Although businesses in the area are open, owners say the string of power outages and leaks has hit them hard. "This is worse than COVID. We can't run a business, we can't make money, we can't pay the bills," said business owner John Kevranian. "All the money we made during the holidays is wiped out. Maybe we should have a state of emergency for the Broadway Burlingame district or the community. This is a catastrophe, a financial catastrophe."
When National Guard troops were deployed here earlier this month, President Donald Trump promised that they would fight crime and make the streets safe again. But in neighborhoods like Columbia Heights, the takeover has created a real sense of terror for immigrants, who say they feel like they are being racially targeted and living in a dystopian version of the city they love.
