The Washington Sanitary Improvement Company (WSIC) was a late 19th century charitable capitalism experiment that ended in the 1950s. This blog started looking at the homes that were supposed to be sold to African American home buyers, after decades of mainly renting to white tenants.
Looking at WSIC properties they tend to have a pattern where the properties were sold to a three business partners, Nathaniel J. Taube, Nathan Levin and James B. Evans as the Colonial Investment Co. for $3 million dollars. Those partners sold to African American buyers. There was usually a foreclosure. Then the property wound up in the hands of George Basiliko and or the DC Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA). Then there was the odd lucky ones who managed to avoid that fate.
Let’s see what happens with 94 Bates St NW:
- December 1950 Evans, Levin and Taube sold all of 94 Bates St NW to Carrie N. and Willie Burns.
- December 1950 the Burns borrowed $6,300 from Colonial Investment Co. favorite trustees Abraham H. Levin and Robert G. Weightman.
- August 1961 the Burns borrowed $5,500 from trustees Junior F. Crowell and Samuel Scrivener Jr., who have lent to other Black Truxton Circle home owners.
- October 1961 the Burns paid off their mortgage debt to Levin and Weightman.
- June 1975 Carrie N. Burns took out a rehabilitation loan from the DC Redevelopment Land Agency with trustee Ralph Werner for $9,150 at 6% interest. It was paid off in 1985.
So this one was unusual. Basiliko doesn’t get involved. The property was sold in whole and the DC RLA was only involved as a lender.