D.C. Tenants Get Little Help

Despite a multi-million-dollar fund created to fix neglected District buildings when landlords fail to step in, only a fraction of the money has gone to repairs and an even smaller amount has been spent on the most troubled apartment complexes. The Post's Debbie Cenziper and Sarah Cohen report that, in some of those buildings, tenants have gone without heat and water.

The city spent three times more on single-family homes than it did on apartment buildings and, in several cases, the homes were worth more than $500,000.

The story is the latest in a series looking into the human toll taken by the city's condominium boom in recent years. Hoping to take advantage of a thriving market, dozens of landlords pushed tenants out of rental buildings, thwarting a decades-old tenant protection law. In some cases, tenants said, the landlords let buildings deteriorate in order to force them out.

At the same time, the city did a poor job of enforcing building codes and, as the most recent story showed, rarely delved into its coffers to help tenants in troubled buildings.

By The Editors |  May 5, 2008; 10:20 AM ET D.C. Landlords
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