Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm late to this thread, but just wanted to chime in and say that I'm among the people who have fled Van Ness due to voucher tenants. Specifically, I lived in one of the large rent-controlled apartment buildings on upper Connecticut. I moved to DC to attend grad school, and I was attracted to the area because it seemed pleasant enough, had good Metro access, and was relatively affordable for someone on a lower income, like me. What ensued was the most stressful living experience of my life. People smoking weed in the hallways. Constant police activity. The guy down the hall from me had a lengthy criminal record (including carjackings and robberies). The guy above me would smoke weed and blare rap with his window open in the middle of the night. (I'm sure he was gainfully employed, with a sleep schedule like that.) Trashy parents screaming at their 6 kids with their windows open. Stabbings and assaults inside the building. Trash/litter everywhere. Roaches coming from nearby filthy units. Ugh, it was awful.

Another commenter pointed out that your experience in these buildings can vary depending on your proximity to voucher tenants. I found that to be true. My hallway was actually mostly fine--the neighbors were a mix of elderly people, students, and other hard-working lower/middle-income folks (the people hit hardest by idiotic DC housing policies). It was the wider environment of the building that was hell. I never knew what kind of bullshit I'd encounter in the lobby or outside of the building. The constant scent of weed coming from neighboring units, as well as occasional auditory pollution (screaming, rap music, etc) were the biggest problems I dealt with in my own unit.

It was also sad to see voucher tenants terrorize the Giant and the CVS by the Metro stop.

When I realized that it would be hard to escape voucher tenants without significantly increasing my rent, I just left DC. I now live in NoVa, where I am happy to say I live the quiet, peaceful, crime-free life that I'd imagine Van Ness used to offer.

It's sad, because I actually really like Van Ness as a neighborhood. I liked the community of businesses in the area (Bread Furst, Sfoglina, Politics & Prose, etc) and found the environment to be charming. I wish I could have experienced it 10-15 years ago.

Nothing has really changed, except now there is a “legal” marijuana dispensary on site to service this growing client base. Honestly most of us have given up on Matt Frumin who seems most interested in renaming parks and bridges. Sadly, our last hope is Eagle Ed and Trump to somehow help us.

I'm still waiting for someone -- anyone -- to give me one concrete accomplishment achieved by Frumin since he took office. Just one.

Anonymous wrote:Good lord. I’m mostly addressing the mom looking to move to an apartment in upper NW.

I too am a mother of young children in a coop along Conn Ave. When I first moved here from elsewhere in the city, I remember going on DCUM and seeing several fear-mongering post like this about upper NW. I was terrified and feared I made the wrong decision.

Now, I own my unit in an almost entirely owner-occupied building, so it’s a bit different, but I’m happy to report that these kinds of posts are overly dramatic, at best.

I feel totally safe walking down Connecticut to frequent the lovely shops and restaurants in the several commercial districts. If anything, I see more a boom and feel safer now than I did when I moved a few years ago. I’ve only lived in NW DC (Logan, West End, Glover Park), and I feel safer here than in any of those other neighborhoods — plus see way fewer homeless people or anything sketchy.

Now, I’m aware of some of the more problematic buildings (Van Ness does feel a bit sketchier than other neighborhoods along Conn Ave), and do agree that there are problems that need to be fixed. But that’s not representative of the vast majority of upper NW business districts and apartment life.

These people would like you to believe Ward 3 is skid row. Don’t believe them. It’s a lovely place to live with children — a great balance of city life and nature (plenty of parks and greenery, the zoo!).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good.

Public housing should be spread equally across all wards. Glad to see Ward 3 is finally making baby steps towards carrying its fair share.

Another reason Democrats will continue to lose elections. Signed / a Democrat.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for the personal attack but I’m not concerned about someone getting something I’m not getting (I guess you’re talking about free or subsidized housing? Not sure but I don’t want that anyway). What I am concerned about is people not getting something they need (services, ideally in an institutional setting where they can’t be declined) but instead getting something that someone in an ivory tower thinks they need (an apartment on Connecticut Ave).


The Ward 3 councilman has refused to request a moratorium on new voucher residents. Until he changes his position or is unseated we will get more of this.

There doesn't need to be a moratorium as much as a carveout in the DC Human Rights law (with cross reference in the Landlord tenant laws) providing that no private building owner has to accept vouchers for more than 10% of their units, with buildings consisting of 10 units or less being exempt from having to accept vouchers altogether. That's a reasonable compromise and much more manageable for building owners. The eviction laws also need to be tightened up to permit rapid evictions for residents who are physically violent or verbally threatening to other tenants or building management.

Anonymous wrote:Good.

Public housing should be spread equally across all wards. Glad to see Ward 3 is finally making baby steps towards carrying its fair share.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm late to this thread, but just wanted to chime in and say that I'm among the people who have fled Van Ness due to voucher tenants. Specifically, I lived in one of the large rent-controlled apartment buildings on upper Connecticut. I moved to DC to attend grad school, and I was attracted to the area because it seemed pleasant enough, had good Metro access, and was relatively affordable for someone on a lower income, like me. What ensued was the most stressful living experience of my life. People smoking weed in the hallways. Constant police activity. The guy down the hall from me had a lengthy criminal record (including carjackings and robberies). The guy above me would smoke weed and blare rap with his window open in the middle of the night. (I'm sure he was gainfully employed, with a sleep schedule like that.) Trashy parents screaming at their 6 kids with their windows open. Stabbings and assaults inside the building. Trash/litter everywhere. Roaches coming from nearby filthy units. Ugh, it was awful.

Another commenter pointed out that your experience in these buildings can vary depending on your proximity to voucher tenants. I found that to be true. My hallway was actually mostly fine--the neighbors were a mix of elderly people, students, and other hard-working lower/middle-income folks (the people hit hardest by idiotic DC housing policies). It was the wider environment of the building that was hell. I never knew what kind of bullshit I'd encounter in the lobby or outside of the building. The constant scent of weed coming from neighboring units, as well as occasional auditory pollution (screaming, rap music, etc) were the biggest problems I dealt with in my own unit.

It was also sad to see voucher tenants terrorize the Giant and the CVS by the Metro stop.

When I realized that it would be hard to escape voucher tenants without significantly increasing my rent, I just left DC. I now live in NoVa, where I am happy to say I live the quiet, peaceful, crime-free life that I'd imagine Van Ness used to offer.

It's sad, because I actually really like Van Ness as a neighborhood. I liked the community of businesses in the area (Bread Furst, Sfoglina, Politics & Prose, etc) and found the environment to be charming. I wish I could have experienced it 10-15 years ago.

Nothing has really changed, except now there is a “legal” marijuana dispensary on site to service this growing client base. Honestly most of us have given up on Matt Frumin who seems most interested in renaming parks and bridges. Sadly, our last hope is Eagle Ed and Trump to somehow help us.

Anonymous wrote:It is amazing several years into this debacle, that has been decades in the making, how few people understand what is happening with these older buildings.

The underlying issue is that DC has permanent rent controlled buildings in affluent areas where landlords are forced to accept rents well below what the market would otherwise yield.

The landlords came up with a very creative solution a few years ago that lets them have their cake and eat it too and unfortunately the city abetted this by changing the law.

There were two changes that enabled this.

The first is the city adjusted what section 8 vouchers pay and indexed the payments to the neighborhood so that vouchers that only pay $1300 for a 1 BR in Ward 8 pay $2700 for a 1 BR in Ward 3 - in fact the city decided to index the payments above what the units even rent for in affluent areas, assuming that to get landlords to accept Section 8 vouchers they would need to pay more than market rates.

This probably would not really have netted that many units going to voucher holders because landlords discriminate and the rental market in Ward 3 has always been very strong so while some voucher holders would have likely found units it would not have been very many and would not have been concentrated.

But the landlords devised a very clever work around that the city signed off on which is the city decided that landlords could rent their rent controlled units to voucher holders at the Section 8 rents but still count them as affordable housing.

So overnight landlords were in essence able to double their rents in rent controlled units to above market rate for the entire Ward while not actually improving the units which they would have had to do at great cost to get the same rents on the open market.

So this has cost the city (though a lot of the money comes from the Feds) a great deal of money in the form of over payments for subpar rental units and eviscerated what used to be naturally occurring affordable housing (well not really as it was dictated by regulations) in otherwise expensive Ward 3.

The city can and should fix this by getting rid of two big loopholes in the process here - voucher holders should not be enabled to overpay for units which benefits no one but landlords and rent control units should have some type of income requirements on them which they don't today so the people who benefit from rent control are the ones who need lower rent and probably there should be no back door ways to transfer rent control units to make sure they go to deserving tenants.

If you did this over time you'd in fact get some section 8 tenants into rent controlled buildings but they'd be paying the same rents as the other tenants so the city would benefit directly by paying less in rent and you'd only have a low percentage of rent control units and would likely avoid the concentrated poverty that abets a lot of the out of control behavior.

But you now have two powerful constituencies benefiting from this system - landlords and low income residents and both groups will furiously oppose any fixes that undo this even though it is a really stupid system.

Anonymous wrote:I'm late to this thread, but just wanted to chime in and say that I'm among the people who have fled Van Ness due to voucher tenants. Specifically, I lived in one of the large rent-controlled apartment buildings on upper Connecticut. I moved to DC to attend grad school, and I was attracted to the area because it seemed pleasant enough, had good Metro access, and was relatively affordable for someone on a lower income, like me. What ensued was the most stressful living experience of my life. People smoking weed in the hallways. Constant police activity. The guy down the hall from me had a lengthy criminal record (including carjackings and robberies). The guy above me would smoke weed and blare rap with his window open in the middle of the night. (I'm sure he was gainfully employed, with a sleep schedule like that.) Trashy parents screaming at their 6 kids with their windows open. Stabbings and assaults inside the building. Trash/litter everywhere. Roaches coming from nearby filthy units. Ugh, it was awful.

Another commenter pointed out that your experience in these buildings can vary depending on your proximity to voucher tenants. I found that to be true. My hallway was actually mostly fine--the neighbors were a mix of elderly people, students, and other hard-working lower/middle-income folks (the people hit hardest by idiotic DC housing policies). It was the wider environment of the building that was hell. I never knew what kind of bullshit I'd encounter in the lobby or outside of the building. The constant scent of weed coming from neighboring units, as well as occasional auditory pollution (screaming, rap music, etc) were the biggest problems I dealt with in my own unit.

It was also sad to see voucher tenants terrorize the Giant and the CVS by the Metro stop.

When I realized that it would be hard to escape voucher tenants without significantly increasing my rent, I just left DC. I now live in NoVa, where I am happy to say I live the quiet, peaceful, crime-free life that I'd imagine Van Ness used to offer.

It's sad, because I actually really like Van Ness as a neighborhood. I liked the community of businesses in the area (Bread Furst, Sfoglina, Politics & Prose, etc) and found the environment to be charming. I wish I could have experienced it 10-15 years ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good.

Public housing should be spread equally across all wards. Glad to see Ward 3 is finally making baby steps towards carrying its fair share.

+1 from this Ward 3 resident

“This” Ward 3 resident lives miles from upper Connecticut Ave and certainly never walks along it. Guaranteed.

My guess is deep into AU Park near Mass or deep into 20015 right next to RCP at about 27th

Both bastions of the limousine liberals - equity consequences for Thee but not for Me! Enjoy Murch y’all (scurries back to all white Janney/Lafayette with zero apartments )

It won’t be that way forever. Don’t worry, they’re coming for you too.

Another dumb comment.

Missing middle describes a form of housing not its residents but all missing middle housing I am aware of is market rate housing.

And this type of housing wouldn't be coming for someone whatever that even means.

Oh, they’re coming for that Missing Middle in AU Park. With Frumin leading the charge.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good.

Public housing should be spread equally across all wards. Glad to see Ward 3 is finally making baby steps towards carrying its fair share.

+1 from this Ward 3 resident

“This” Ward 3 resident lives miles from upper Connecticut Ave and certainly never walks along it. Guaranteed.

My guess is deep into AU Park near Mass or deep into 20015 right next to RCP at about 27th

Both bastions of the limousine liberals - equity consequences for Thee but not for Me! Enjoy Murch y’all (scurries back to all white Janney/Lafayette with zero apartments )

It won’t be that way forever. Don’t worry, they’re coming for you too.

Another dumb comment.

Missing middle describes a form of housing not its residents but all missing middle housing I am aware of is market rate housing.

And this type of housing wouldn't be coming for someone whatever that even means.

Oh, they’re coming for that Missing Middle in AU Park. With Frumin leading the charge.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good.

Public housing should be spread equally across all wards. Glad to see Ward 3 is finally making baby steps towards carrying its fair share.

+1 from this Ward 3 resident

“This” Ward 3 resident lives miles from upper Connecticut Ave and certainly never walks along it. Guaranteed.

My guess is deep into AU Park near Mass or deep into 20015 right next to RCP at about 27th

Both bastions of the limousine liberals - equity consequences for Thee but not for Me! Enjoy Murch y’all (scurries back to all white Janney/Lafayette with zero apartments )

It won’t be that way forever. Don’t worry, they’re coming for you too.