Because Destructo (my 8 year old son) is who he is, we were heading to the Kaiser Urgent Care Center near Union Station. They had a 2 hour wait as opposed to the 5 hour wait at the Largo UCC. This had us driving from Rhode Island and up 1st, past what was the Sursum Corda Apartments.
Taken May 16, 2007. First and M St NW. View of Sursum Corda Apts.
In my previous post about churches and housing, I mentioned Immaculate Conception Apartments, now 1330. In the 1970s it seems all the cool churches were doing low income housing. Sursum Corda, based on my quick glance of a June 25, 1972 Washington Post article was the product of St. Aloysius, its school Gonzaga High School, and other Catholic groups who like Immaculate, created an organization to create the housing.
I had to giggle when reading, “Mrs. Brown said crime has gone down markedly since the early days of the project.” When I arrived in the Shaw neighborhood, Sursum Corda was famously crime ridden.
But it was also painful reading the hope in 1972 that the apartment complex would be a new start for residents, providing a better life than what was offered in city public housing. Good intentions do not produce the results desired. Fast forward fifty years and what do you have? Apartment buildings completely divorced from the faith based communities that created them, struggling with crime. Or complexes that are no longer 100% low-income housing, but more market rate with a few subsidized units.
Ten years ago, on this date, I published a post, Know your public housing. Basically, what is affordable housing isn’t public housing. People might be using ‘public housing’ as shorthand, but it is incorrect.
Local governments are moving away from the public housing model and towards vouchers, aka Section 8. It’s easier to boss around landlords than to deal with property management yourself.
There are plenty of places within the historic boundaries of Shaw that are mistaken for public housing that is not public housing or no longer public housing. What is public housing? That’s housing “owned and managed by the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA).” And what is currently owned by the city in Shaw and other neighborhoods, compared to the number of privately owned apartments is minuscule.
I’ve gone down the list of DC public housing and only the James Apartments at 1425 N St NW, and possibly Claridge Towers at 1221 M St NW (it’s on the boundary) and Horizon House are the only public housing apartments in & on the border with Shaw.
The Northwest Co-Ops 1 and 2, not public housing.
Asbury Dwellings on Rhode Island, not public housing.
1330 at 1330 7th St NW, formerly Immaculate Conception Apartments, not public housing.
The McCollough Terrace Apartments, strangely some of the few non-Suzane Reatig designed UHOP buildings in Shaw, obviously not public housing.
The Washington Apartments, not public housing. I’m not even sure it’s still taking voucher tenants in 2026.
Foster House, formerly affordable housing associated with New Bethel Church, and there was a settlement, not public housing.
The Gibson Apartments, not public housing.
So lesson learned. When there is talk of affordable or workforce housing at your community meetings, it’s the examples I’ve provided above, the “not public housing.” Also affordable housing isn’t forever. The thing with vouchers, is that a company or property management group can choose to pivot towards market rate housing.
A couple of things passed through my social media on the topic of churches, or a particular church, getting into the affordable housing game. In one case, there is a church dealing with financial and membership woes throwing out the idea that maybe they could turn some of their prime urban acreage into housing. In another, some urban policy writer pointing out a plan by a progressive church to build affordable housing over their worship space and suggesting other churches do likewise.
My attitude, I’m not a member, so you do you, but be aware of the long term by learning from history. Who am I kidding? No one learns from history, because “this time, it’s different!”
If anyone is interested in learning from history, the Shaw neighborhood has several examples. Not a Shaw church but Greater Deliverance Christian Center Church of God in Christ formerly of SE DC owned Kelsey Gardens, an affordable housing complex, which was torn down for mixed use development between 2004-2006. Shiloh Baptist has owned and still owns property for well over 30 years and has done little in development. Immaculate Conception Church had used its Shaw properties to create the apartments at 1330 7th St NW in the 1970s? I believe Mt. Sinai has used its property as part of its mission work, if and when the properties have been used as housing, but not rentals. And lastly, the United House of Prayer for All Peoples (UHOP) is a major landlord and developer.
1330 7th St NW, formerly the Immaculate Conception Apartments.
Just thinking of the examples, it’s complicated. And the outcomes, when thinking 20-30 years out don’t always match the rosy fuzzy picture painted in the planning stages. No one says, ‘hey let’s build some housing that we won’t manage and will add to the neighborhood’s crime problem!’ Or ‘let’s keep planning to build housing, but for one reason or another never ever get around to it and be forced to sell because maintaining shells is hurting our church budget.’ They might quietly say, ‘let’s build housing and have it as an extra revenue stream,’ which doesn’t work out for everyone.
Northwest Co-op. These are post 1968 riot affordable housing units. The bay window like sections that jut out on the 2nd floor reference the circa 1900 Bates Street houses with a similar type (but less boxy) window.
They are not public housing. They might accept Section 8, but it is not public housing.
I’m trying to clean up a bunch of papers I have. I hope I can be brave enough to toss them into the recycling bin. One piece of paper is something I got from the Washington Post archives via ProQuest.
Fine Home At Low Rent: Bates Street Buildings Erected for Wage Earners, Are Up to Date: Sanitation Was One of Chief Aims of Washington Company Which Has Erected Them, is an article from July 25, 1915 on page RE5. The short of it is an article about the Washington Sanitary Improvement Company (WSIC) having built homes for unskilled laborers, the workforce housing of 100 years ago.
The paper sells the WSIC as a good investment providing housing $10 for 3 rooms and a bath and $12 a month for 4 rooms and a bath. There are other units to rented at $7.50 and $8.50 a month for two rooms and a bath. These homes are on Bates Street NW.
Because of copyright, I’m not providing a copy here, but you can access the article via the DC Public Library. You will need your DC Library card to use this resource.
Screen Capture of http://opendata.dc.gov/ data set of Affordable Housing
I started searching because the Open Data DC.gov site has a map so you can find affordable housing projects in the District. So I went to the side and drilled down to Truxton Circle.
So I saw Chapman Stables was in there and there are supposed to be 11 affordable unit of the 100 plus units. Six units are at 31%-50% AMI and 5 units at 61%-80% AMI.
But then I wondered. Wait. Condos have condo fees. These fees can start off reasonable and then if something happens creep or jump up. Then I wondered what do these affordable units look like? Are they segregated from the other units, like some apartment buildings?
So I went a looking at the DC property sales database to look at what sold below the $300K advertized basement price. This is public information, but I’m not going to use names or unit numbers. I found 5 units, they are not all on the same level, and they are not all studios. The first was sold on October 9th for $237,400 is a corner two bedroom unit. I noticed several of these affordable units share a wall with some common space things, like stairwells. Three units were sold for $114,600 in 2018. Two of those are one bedrooms and one is a studio. The one bedrooms share a wall with a common space thing and the studio is well, a studio. And lastly a one bedroom unit sold for $214,300.00 on October 16, 2018, and it only shares walls with other units.
The monthly condo fee for a one bedroom is $362. The fee for a typical studio is less than $300, and for a two bedroom in the $600 range. Remember kids, the condo fee is in addition to the mortgage and real estate taxes. I don’t know if the buyers of the affordable units get to pay a reduced fee or must pay the same rate as the market rate buyers, because everyone must contribute to the maintenance, trash, and all that other good stuff.
Also, let’s look at the categories of 31% to 50% AMI and 61% to 80% AMI. This is more about the buyer of the unit than the unit. Six units are for 31-50% AMI. According to the Department of Housing and Community Development’s chart that’s an income ceiling of $41,000 for a single person and $46,900 for a household of two. On the off chance the two bedroom was available for this category, a household of four’s limit is $58,600. There is nothing for the 51-60% AMI group. Five units were set aside for the 61-80% AMI group and the ceilings are $65,650, $75,000, $84,400 and $93,750 for households of one, two, three and four persons.
There is another condo in Truxton that is not yet completed, which has just 2 affordable units for 61-80% AMI, and that is Compass’ Five Points Flats. I have no clue as to what the condo fees for this thing will be.
It is easy for me to imagine single teachers, non-profit workers, civil servants, or savvy retirees, being able to fit into these income categories AND keep up with the HOA/condo fees. What I cannot see is how people who are in those AMI groups find out the availability and price of these units. As I see with Chapman Stables, they did manage to find those units.
When I read studies about housing, housing stock and affordable housing, as it applies to areas like Shaw, I can’t help feeling there is a very wrong assumption flowing through them all. I encountered, that feeling when talking to a renter on my street who would love to buy, but was unaware of what some of us did to make affordable homes livable, and once they became livable, unaffordable to people like him. A house that was affordable in Shaw in the 80s or 90s is probably not the same house that stands today.
In the 1940s-50s Shaw was described as a slum. A slum was defined in some writings as an area where a significant number of houses lacked indoor plumbing or interior toilets, thus slummy Shaw. I want you, dear reader, to think about that. Living somewhere, when you have to go, you’ve got to go….. outside. But now there are laws and regulations so when you rent a place, you get that fancy pants indoor bathroom with hot water.
But there are other housing deficiencies that houses in the 90s and early 00s suffered from because of the history of disinvestment in the neighborhood. Disinvestment meaning, landlords and homeowners had no incentive to maintain properties, beyond necessity, with little to no equity gained. Not updating kitchens, or electrical wiring, or plumbing, resulting in cramped little kitchens, wiring that would fry your electronics, and leaky pipes.
House under renovation.
Then came the renovations and the gentrification. Some were crappy and cosmetic, like my house when I bought it, and some actually fixed long neglected problems or updated systems. Even crappy renovations cost money and those costs are pushed onto the end user, the home buyer or the renter. Yes, there are places where there has been no, to little reinvestment, and the prices act as if there were.
So next time you read a report that assumes the equity gained due to gentrification is unearned, question if the house that was affordable in year X is of the same quality, with the same features, when it is unaffordable in year Y.
The Advoc8te who runs Congress Heights on the Rise pointed out a problem with income limited or affordable housing in DC. That has continue to bug me, because for years at community meetings when ‘workforce’ housing is trotted out residents are told it would allow government workers such as police and teachers to live in the communities they serve. Then when I see the income limits and then look at the starting salaries for DC police and teachers, I think, I’ve been lied to. I decided to just glance at what DC pays its teachers and police. Almost all government employees’ salaries are public, mine, my spouse’s, my cousin who makes a quarter of a million, it’s no secret, so I can actually see what DC pays. Grade school teachers, not teachers aides, not substitute teachers, nor administrative staff, if they’ve been teaching 3-4 years at least, are in the $60-70K range. There is a school librarian making six figures, as a fellow librarian, I say good for them. I didn’t pay much attention to MPD salaries, but officers are making over $60K. That makes sense if this poster is true and the pay starts at $55,362. If a teacher and cop fall in love, a la rom-com adventure, they’re making six figures as one household if they marry.
Okay, let’s get back to housing and income limits. There are a couple of key things you have to keep in mind, household size and AMI, area median income or MFI, median family income.
Say Anna works for a non-profit and makes $40K, and there is a new affordable housing development with studios and 1 bedrooms that’s at 50% and 60% AMI/MFI. She might be able to get a studio at 60% MFI, but not at 50%. She makes too much at 50%. But if Anna was a single mom, a household of 2, aiming for a 1 bedroom (I don’t remember the rules about this), she would qualify at 50%. Looking at this table, and going on my memory, the DC government employees who could qualify are school custodians, teacher’s aides, and some DC Public Library staff. The city doesn’t pay our librarians enough.
If you haven’t read Congress Heights on the Rise’s (CHotR) blog, please do. The author, Ms. Peele is telling some serious truths about the problem of affordable housing in her neighborhood. It is not the same problem of affordable housing experienced in NW, the problem is there is a little too much affordable housing and not enough market housing.
One of the post’s “Why investing ONLY in income-capped housing in Ward 8 is setting us up for failure,” can be summed up as affordable housing needs to be spread around more equally across all 8 wards and not concentrated East of the River (EotR). She points out that the majority of the available apartments for rent in her area are income capped, which means a single person making $51,000 cannot rent an apartment there, and forget about a married couple. Without those sort of renters, that middle class contingent, the urban amenities that make DC fun are in short supply in her neighborhood, and she has to drive elsewhere for fitness and food.
Continuing in another post “MORE OF THE SAME: 7 more income-capped housing projects planned for Ward 8,” she is obviously frustrated with the DC government’s (DHCD) housing policy of more income capped housing. This sort of policy keeps out the kind of residents who could support the businesses (and jobs) she wants and provide the kind of role models kids in the neighborhood need. The income limits keeps out nurses, police officers, teachers, and most other professionals. Many of the income limit apartment buildings are at 50% MFI/AMI (Median Family Income/ Area Median Income) so a single person cannot make more than $41,050. The starting salary for a DCPS teacher is supposed to be $55, 209, and the starting salary for a MPD police officer is $55,362. It would have to be at 80% MFI/AMI for a single income teacher or police officer. Logically, if you had a married couple (the cop married to a teacher) they would blow past the $46,900 50% MFI/ $76,000 80% MFI limits for a household of two, and three.
Aren’t we just repeating the mistakes of the past with new packaging? Concentrating poverty is destructive, cruel and wrong. We, as a city, have done it before with public housing and created environments of unemployment, crime, death and dysfunction.
So I was bopping around the YouTubies as I normally do and decided after the question of what foods are great for baby led weaning, I decided to ask, what is affordable housing. I know what is affordable housing, well its technical definition for DC. But what does it mean in real life for tenants?
Although not for DC (New York City, different animal) I came across this from a fitness Youtuber Imani Shakir.
I love how she talks about her experience with the system and how it works there. Just going by her video this is what I learned: You need an on-line housing profile; don’t apply for everything, just apply to the buildings where you qualify; Your chances are better if you pick a building in your area; You need to respond quickly and have accurate contact info; You may need letters from your current and former bosses in addition to pay stubs as some of your application documentation when asked. You might have less than 2 weeks to get those documents together; and the biggest take away, it may take years to get an affordable unit. In her case it was 3 years.
We normally hear about affordable housing from politicians, activists, and administrators, but almost never from recent applicants and recipients of affordable housing.
