MPD has referred Connecticut House, an apartment building at 4500 Connecticut Avenue, to the Office of the Attorney General division that investigates “nuisance” properties.
MPD Second District Lieutenant Stephen Amodeo confirmed in an email that “recent qualifying violations of the law” led the police to take this step, which can lead to prosecution of the property owner. One violation, according to the newly formed Connecticut House tenants association, was the discovery of a ghost gun in the apartment of the woman who jumped from an eighth floor window on April 21st. Police say her legs were bound, and she was trying to escape an attacker. A suspect was arrested that night.
The tenants association says it has repeatedly requested a 24-hour security guard to deal with unauthorized visitors. DARO Management, the landord, continues to deny the request.
Connecticut House is the fourth apartment building in Van Ness to be referred to the OAG. The other three are 3003 Van Ness Street (previously known as Van Ness South), the Saratoga at 4601 Connecticut Avenue, and the Chesapeake at 4607 Connecticut.
The Saratoga and Chesapeake Apartments, Horning Brothers properties and neighbors at 4601 and 4607 Connecticut Avenue, are forming the Saratoga Chesapeake Tenants Association.
On March 25th, the Van Ness South Tenants Association released a report on security issues at 3003 Van Ness including broken exterior doors and locks, and nonfunctioning security lights and cameras. The apartment building is an Equity Residential property.
Tenant leaders request a meeting with the mayor
Ward 3 tenant leaders have been holding listening sessions with elected leaders and candidates for office including Council chair Phil Mendelson, Ward 3 Council candidates Eric Goulet, Matt Frumin and Beau Finley, at-large Council candidate Lisa Gore and mayoral candidate and Council member Robert White. On Monday, May 9th, the tenant leaders from 3003 Van Ness, the Brandywine Apartments, Connecticut House, Sedgwick Gardens and the Kenmore sent a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser to request that she also meet with them.
In their letter, they invite the mayor to discuss her administration’s housing policies, which include voucher subsidies that they say pay “exceptionally high rents” to landlords, with the effect of making other renters less lucrative for property owners.
“This shrinks the stock of affordable rent-stabilized housing for low- and modest-income renters who do not receive vouchers,” the tenant leaders wrote.
Chris Geldart, the deputy mayor for public safety and justice, set the stage for such a meeting when he told ANC 3F in April that DC’s housing vouchers system “ain’t working.” He acknowledged that the residents who required additional support services often were not receiving them from the agencies that provided their vouchers. Geldart’s admission followed complaints from residents of Sedgwick Gardens, the Brandywine and other apartment buildings of a significant increase in police calls and visits, and a lack of an adequate response by DC agencies and landlords to reports of nuisance behavior and violent incidents.
Geldart said he had visited 20 DC apartment buildings with similar issues, including one that had so many voucher residents that it had become a de facto public housing unit. And, it was taxing police resources, with 120 service calls in two months.
“I can tell you that we’re bringing every agency that can give a voucher out into the room to account for what is happening,” Geldart said.
Tell us about your high-rise life
How well do the owners and managers of your apartment building respond to issues of building maintenance, safety and security, noise and trash? Does your building have tenants associations? How common are problems like those that drove MPD to refer four Van Ness buildings to the “nuisance” properties unit of the Office of the Attorney General? How livable are the places where so many DC residents live?
We’re seeking answers to these questions and more through our DC-wide tenants survey. We hope you will fill it out and pass it along to other renters you know.
Joyce Stern says
Thank you for this timely and very very important update on what is happening in our neighborhood. I’ve lived for 13 years and the first 10 were fabulous. Now I no longer feel safe just going about my business on Connecticut Avenue. To read about such an uptick in criminal activity in apartment buildings near where I live is absolutely terrifying. It’s not an uptick it’s a tsunami. I do not want to move because my residence is near places I like to go. But things have gotten totally out of hand. Thank you for your phenomenal reporting.
David Krucoff says
Policies that feel good often don’t work. The voucher program, brought to us by multiple DC agencies, unfortunately was not well thought out nor was it well implemented. We are significantly less safe, particularly along Connecticut Ave in Forest Hills. Stronger Council oversight is required, but more importantly, we must acknowledge that programs that in effect diminish supply, do not help anyone be able to afford to live here in our beautiful city. Longterm renting residents of Ward 3 are looking to vacate. Solutions are not easy to find, but my instinct is to not pay above market rents in the first place. Secondly, city wide (and that’s the market, not just Ward 3) TOPA and rent control requirements are too stringent, particularly for small and middle size apartment owners. Reinvestment or redevelopment by them in their properties does not pay. Therefore, dilapidation occurs. Lastly, tax and recordation fees have almost doubled to these owners in the last two years. In the end the vouchers support demand and at the same time our policies restrict supply. It’s time for a change in the Wilson Building. We would benefit from having someone there that can articulate these points in Council.
Green Eyeshades says
No one has posted proof that any tenant at any of the nuisance buildings — or any other apartment building in our neighborhood — are paying “above market rents.” Rent control is very effective and has been very valuable to thousands of DC renters for about forty years.
No tenant (regardless of their source of payment) has any obligation to pay “above market rents” under DC’s rent control laws and regulations and landlord-tenant laws and regulations (including court-made case law). If anyone has proof that a landlord in a rent-controlled building is forcing any tenant to pay “above market rents” (including any voucher holders), publish that proof so one of us can file appropriate tenant petition(s) against that landlord.
Green Eyeshades says
The beginning of your 11:10 am comment includes these two sentences: “The voucher program, brought to us by multiple DC agencies, unfortunately was not well thought out nor was it well implemented. We are significantly less safe, particularly along Connecticut Ave in Forest Hills.”
Blaming the “voucher program” for making our neighborhood “significantly less safe” is blaming tenants who pay their rent with vouchers for making our neighborhood “significantly less safe.” Your comment blames voucher users for making our neighborhood “significantly less safe.” Your comment encourages scapegoating voucher users and encourages discrimination against tenants for the source of their income, which would be unlawful.
You should be aware that one of the newest tenant associations in our neighborhood — the Saratoga Chesapeake Tenants Association — recommends its members and supporters write complaints about incidents in their building like this:
“Write from your heart, be genuine, fact-filled, and specific to the complaint outlining reasons, with evidence (for example, you witnessed the incident) of what is happening in the building. Concentrate on incidents and not on the income source of any resident. Complaints about income sources can be seen as racist, prejudical and discriminatory.”
Let’s keep that in mind: complaints about income sources can be seen as racist, prejudical and discriminatory.
I will post a link to that page of their website in a separate comment.
Rubye Nell Johnson says
Similar issues are taking place at my building, Golden Rule Plaza. What action can I take?
David Krucoff says
I would let your councilmember know. I think Golden Rule Apartments are in Ward 6. Charles Allen’s constituent services team should hear about what’s happening. Specifics will help. Kimberly Kennedy
Constituent Services Coordinator
Email: [email protected]
Telephone: (202) 724-8072
Green Eyeshades says
The quotation from the website of the Saratoga Chesapeake Tenants Association appears in item 3 on this page of their website:
https://sctenantsassociati.wixsite.com/satenantsassociation/10-steps-you-can-take-to-help-create-a-safe-healthy-community-for-residents-and-staff
The home page for that website is here: https://sctenantsassociati.wixsite.com/satenantsassociation
Cornelius Harris says
I would limit the percentage of units in any building that can be subsidized with housing vouchers.
Let’s not ignore the stats about the increasing number of police calls made since the expansion of the housing voucher program.
The truth can be very uncomfortable for those who want to say otherwise.
Green Eyeshades says
Please show us those “stats.” I have not seen any statistics proving even a correlation between (1) police calls to a specific building and (2) numbers of voucher users in that building.
Even if there may be a correlation between (1) and (2) in one specific building, that is not proof of a cause-and-effect relationship between (1) and (2).
Even if there may be proof of that an increase in (2) causes an increase in (1) in a specific building in our neighborhood, that is not proof that “expansion of the housing voucher program” is causing an increase in police calls to buildings in our neighborhood.
Please show us your statistics.
Mcblake says
It seems many of the DARO properties fit this nuisance profile. We live at 2929 Connecticut Avenue for a year, another DARO property, and encountered the same issues, security lacks, crime/drugs, continuous police calls, even panhandling in the building by residents. We had to move. DARO seems to be unfit to manage its real estate.
DC_chica says
Someone needs to clarify the TYPE of vouchers associated with problematic tenants. The main Section 8 voucher program (Housing Choice Vouchers, HCV) allows landlords to screen potential tenants the same way they would non-voucher tenants — background check, credit check, rental history, etc. so it is possible that landlords are not conducting proper screening. That said, I don’t know what kind of screening, if any, is conducted in DC’s rapid rehousing program (which I suspect is often categorized as a “voucher” program.) To answer the question above, according to the DC PHA’s website, the maximum amount that an HCV will pay for a one-bedroom unit in Forest Hills is between $2467-2648. Seems above market to me, but we don’t know for sure if the landlords are actually getting that much.
Green Eyeshades says
Thank you for the tip about the “DC PHA’s website.” I assume you were referring to the DC government website for the DC Housing Authority (DCHA), which is at dchousing dot org. That website calls the voucher system the “Housing Choice Voucher Program” so the abbreviation is actually HCVP. I could not find the dollar amounts you mentioned which HCVP “will pay for a one-bedroom unit in Forest Hills.” I am sure those amounts are on that website somewhere.
There are some new and new-ish buildings in Forest Hills, such as the Park Van Ness (brand new) and the Park Connecticut (new-ish), which are not covered by rent control. The Park Van Ness could easily charge rents in the range you describe as the “maximum” that could be paid using a Housing Choice Voucher (HCV). But so far, neither of those newer buildings have been named in Forest Hills Connection as “nuisance buildings” as far as I know.
The Saratoga is also too new to be covered by rent control.
Chesapeake House, Connecticut House and most of the buildings reported by the Connection as being designated “nuisance buildings” on Van Ness Street east of Connecticut Avenue are also covered by rent control.
So I still would like to see proof that tenants using housing vouchers are paying more than rent control allows in rent-controlled apartment buildings.
Green Eyeshades says
Thanks to DC_chica mentioning the DCHA website, I did find the dollar amounts she described in her comment.
First, I had to go to this page: https://www.dchousing.org/vue/customer/rent.aspx
Then, I had to ignore the big blue bar labeled “DC Propery Search” and instead find the tiny down arrow at the far right-hand end of the top of the page. When I clicked on that tiny down arrow, it gave me the names of DC neighborhoods. Forest Hills is near the top, below “Foggy Bottom” and above “Fort Dupont Park.”
The list of rents shows two separate amounts for each apartment size, a higher rent “with utilities” and a lower rent “without utilities.” (Most rent-controlled apartments in this area do not require the tenant to pay for utilities, so that simple fact alone could make it look like DCHA is paying “above market” when all it is doing is paying for utilities on top of rent.)
As DC_chica wrote, for a one-bedroom apartment in Forest Hills, DCHA appears to pay $2,467 “without utilities” and $2,648 “with utilities.” For a two-bedroom, the rents are $2,872 and $3,113, respectively. For a three-bedroom, the rents are $3,872 and $4,069, respectively.
I do not believe $2,467 is “above market” for one-bedroom apartments in buildings NOT under rent control. In fact, I think the DCHA rental rates are probably at least part of the definition of what “market rate” is, if not the entire definition.
Tenants in rent-controlled apartments do not pay “market” rates. The whole point of rent control is to protect tenants from landlords who want to maximize profits by driving up “market” prices.
I still say tenants who live in rent-controlled buildings do not have any obligation to pay more than rent control allows, even if they pay with DCHA vouchers.
lilk says
Vote Muriel Bowser out! She gives jobs to those who donate to her campaign.
Hire more case workers and social workers. Residents need support: to be checked
on, to make sure they take their medication; to make sure they have food.