In DC, public housing tenants forced out, then homes flipped

2stepz_ahead
2stepz_ahead Guests, Members, Writer, Content Producer Posts: 32,324 ✭✭✭✭✭


In the rapidly gentrifying nation's capital, real estate investors aren't the only ones flipping houses for profit. The city's public housing authority is getting in on the action — moving aging tenants out of homes where they've lived for decades, renovating them and selling them to wealthy buyers.

The renovations, at a cost of more than $300,000 per home, are outfitting the houses with luxury amenities, and some of the houses have sold for nearly $900,000. Others, however, have sat vacant for a year or longer after tenants were forced out.

The housing authority plans to use the profits to renovate existing subsidized rental units and build new ones. But most of that work hasn't started, and none of the money has gone to new construction yet, according to the agency. Meanwhile, sales have been slow-moving and haphazard.

Some elderly tenants and their children have asked for an opportunity to purchase the homes, only to be rebuffed, even after spending thousands of dollars maintaining the rental properties.

The homes are known in public-housing circles as "scattered sites" — single-family properties around Washington that are rented to public-housing tenants. Many are in desirable neighborhoods, including Capitol Hill and Shaw, where median home prices have more than doubled in the past 15 years to $500,000-plus.

The District of Columbia Housing Authority once had more than 300 scattered sites and has been slowly selling them off since the 1990s. But in 2010, when the city's real-estate market began to rebound after the Great Recession, the agency started treating the properties as real-estate investors would — gutting, rehabbing and selling them for as much as the market can bear. Previously, the homes were sold to low- and moderate-income buyers or to nonprofits that maintained them as affordable housing, a practice common to housing authorities nationwide.

One home, on a well-kept block in Capitol Hill, has been vacant since late 2013, when the longtime tenants — Lula Brooks, 81, and her husband, Sonny, 82 — were abruptly moved out. Brooks and her son said the housing authority threw away many of her belongings — including a washing machine, furniture, clothing and personal documents. The authority disputes this account, but Brooks' next-door neighbor, Jon Wadsworth, told The Associated Press he watched as employees threw the belongings away.

The house wasn't renovated. A year later, it was put on the market for $400,000 — unusually low for the neighborhood. It eventually sold for that price after higher offers fell through, but the housing authority asked its title company not to sign over the deed. The sale is tied up in litigation.

The rest of the houses the authority has sold in recent years have gone for market value. Others sit empty because the authority can't afford to renovate them.

A year ago, Levant Graham, 84, was moved out of the five-bedroom home in Shaw where she'd lived since the early 1970s and raised seven children. The housing authority plans to flip the house, but so far it hasn't been renovated or listed for sale.

"I thought the house was already sold. I thought it was on the market. So, I don't know what the big rush was to get me out of the house," Graham said.

Graham petitioned housing officials to buy the property with her children's help. Instead, she was moved into a one-bedroom apartment in a new building for low-income seniors. The building is in a gentrifying part of Shaw not far from her old house, but she says she doesn't feel safe because of a shooting nearby and rarely goes outside.

"The money that I paid there for the 42 years I was there, I could have had the house paid for," Graham said. "I thought I had a good chance of getting the house, but I guess I didn't."

District of Columbia law gives tenants of rent-controlled or market-rate buildings the first ? at buying them if they're placed on the market. But the law doesn't apply to the housing authority or its tenants because the agency is independent, leaving residents with no legal recourse to argue against being moved.

The housing authority is an independent agency that gets most of its funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The authority took over management of the scattered sites — originally intended as an alternative to conventional public housing — from city government in the mid-1990s when the city's financial struggles prompted a takeover by Congress. Since then, it has been selling them off gradually with HUD approval.

Sunia Zaterman, executive director of the Council of Large Public Housing Authorities, said housing authorities nationwide have been "chronically underfunded" by the federal government and use creative financing strategies to maintain their properties — including selling their scattered sties and using private-sector investment to fund renovations and new construction. But she said she wasn't aware of another agency that's flipping homes the way the District is.

the rest here
http://news.yahoo.com/dc-public-housing-tenants-forced-then-homes-flipped-151310306.html

Comments

  • 2stepz_ahead
    2stepz_ahead Guests, Members, Writer, Content Producer Posts: 32,324 ✭✭✭✭✭
    yall house flippers get on this
  • not_osirus_jenkins
    not_osirus_jenkins Members, Banned Users Posts: 3,670 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Always wanted to do some work in DC.
  • babelipsss
    babelipsss Members Posts: 2,517 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Sad. But paying rent on a house for decades?
  • blackrain
    blackrain Members, Moderators Posts: 27,269 Regulator
    I talked about this a couple years ago on the IC and in a few threads on real estate here too. ? is crazy what's happening in the city right now
  • Shizlansky
    Shizlansky Members Posts: 35,095 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Capitalism

    It's the American way.
  • CeLLaR-DooR
    CeLLaR-DooR Members Posts: 18,880 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Happenin' bad in London. Hackney isn't recognisable at all. Fully hipsters who wouldn't have been caught dead there a couple years ago.

    ? is sad man. All these areas were dilapidated as ? but they make us live there, we build communities then they make us move when we nice the place up smh
  • fuc_i_look_like
    fuc_i_look_like Members Posts: 9,190 ✭✭✭✭✭
    babelipsss wrote: »
    Sad. But paying rent on a house for decades?

    Lol @ her saying "i thought i had a pretty good chance of getting the house, but I guess I didnt". (After 42 years renting)
  • S2J
    S2J Members Posts: 28,458 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2015
    Damn this is weird, my chick has a condo in Columbia heights we was goin for a walk n talkin bout this yesterday

    At least 1 house on every block was under construction

    They're turning individual 3 bedroom houses into lil mini apt complexes. Saw 1 joint it used to be a 4drm rowhouse, now being turned into an apt conplex with 10 units at 600k a pop

    The proift margin is ridiculous
  • 2stepz_ahead
    2stepz_ahead Guests, Members, Writer, Content Producer Posts: 32,324 ✭✭✭✭✭
    S2J wrote: »
    Damn this is weird, my chick has a condo in Columbia heights we was goin for a walk n talkin bout this yesterday

    At least 1 house on every block was under construction

    They're turning individual 3 bedroom houses into lil mini apt complexes. Saw 1 joint it used to be a 4drm rowhouse, now being turned into an apt conplex with 10 units at 600k a pop

    The proift margin is ridiculous

    thing is....these are the same people that caused the housing bubble the last time
  • zzombie
    zzombie Members Posts: 11,280 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I moved people out with no hesitation
  • zzombie
    zzombie Members Posts: 11,280 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The real estate business can be a profitable pain in the ass
  • king hassan
    king hassan Members Posts: 22,739 ✭✭✭✭✭
    babelipsss wrote: »
    Sad. But paying rent on a house for decades?

    They were set up that way, and if she been there that long she was probably not making a lot of money and did what she had to do
  • the dukester
    the dukester Members Posts: 1,822 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Cacs gentrifying D.C so they can have easy access to their jobs, the museums/shops, and the downtown entertainment district.

    The mantra "last hired, first fired" is applicable to the real estate market for low-income blacks as well. Last choice in being selected for affordable housing, and first to be "gentrified out" of aforementioned housing.
  • S2J
    S2J Members Posts: 28,458 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November 2015
    With these new developments they have to set aside a percentage of units for 'low income' people. Its a sham tho bc in DC low income is as high as 30-40k, so a yuppie college student can get in early

    Not gon lie im still kicking myself, about 5 years ago a realtor put me on to a pre-development deal for a high rise downtown. A few slots avail for low incoming housing. I didn't qualify as low income but u can put it im somebody else name, cheap mortgage, rent it out at market rate :'(
  • SolemnSauce
    SolemnSauce Members Posts: 15,860 ✭✭✭✭✭
    S2J wrote: »
    Damn this is weird, my chick has a condo in Columbia heights we was goin for a walk n talkin bout this yesterday

    At least 1 house on every block was under construction

    They're turning individual 3 bedroom houses into lil mini apt complexes. Saw 1 joint it used to be a 4drm rowhouse, now being turned into an apt conplex with 10 units at 600k a pop

    The proift margin is ridiculous

    thing is....these are the same people that caused the housing bubble the last time

    There u go...

    Greedy people never learn, they just try to get in and get out before the house burns down. No pun intended