As Ethiopians Prosper, A Safety Net Is Displaced

"We saw the future," Omer said.

Again, Omer borrowed on credit cards -- at 18 percent interest, he said -- because he couldn't get a commercial loan to buy the Georgia Avenue property.

"We sacrificed a lot, took a lot of risks. I still have $70,000 on credit cards," he said.

Omer knew the property was bound to make a good profit. And fast. "We didn't give any long-term leases," he said, not to the community center or to the home health care business upstairs.

But Omer never raised the center's $1,600-a-month rent, either. How could he do that when the center was teaching English to the cousin he brought from Ethiopia two years ago?

"Even renting has become so expensive. We know it's difficult," he said.

After a bidding war drove offers on the two properties over the $3.5 million asking price, Omer decided to sell. The development of Georgia Avenue "is good for all of us," he said.

It's hard for Kebede to argue with that. The real estate boom has benefited many of the estimated 100,000 Ethiopians who immigrated to the Washington region over the past quarter-century, many of whom arrived as refugees in the years after the 1974 military coup. They bought taxicabs and shops and restaurants, building the biggest and most vibrant Ethiopian community in North America, according to the Ethiopian Embassy, while sending money back to one of the poorest nations on Earth.

While the old arrivals prosper, the community center is focusing on the new ones, including a young housewife whose husband left her last fall with no job, no English language skills, no working papers and two young children. Kebede forestalled the young mother's eviction (again, the landlord was Ethiopian), found her a new apartment, urged her into English classes and is helping the public elementary school deal with her emotionally fragile son.

Every couple of months, someone fresh from Ethiopia turns up at Dulles International Airport with nowhere to go. The taxi drivers know to take such people to Kebede.

Kebede, who has worked at the Ethiopian Community Center full-time since 1992 and was a board member before then, estimates that hundreds of people who own property and have good jobs were helped by the center. Many of them are trying to help. Last fall, a board member hosted a fundraiser that added $30,000 to the center's building fund, which now stands at $65,000. But in Northwest, where the Ethiopian community is concentrated, $180,000 is needed just to buy a building the appraisers say is "no good," Kebede said. More money would be needed to demolish such a place and build something new.

In this market, she said, $65,000 "is not going to do anything."

Raising additional money has proven difficult. Though Ethiopians have prospered in the District, many are still caring for poor relatives back home. It's hard to get their attention, said Tamiru Degefa, 49, a merchant who showed up at the center near lunchtime to check his e-mail.

"People work two, three jobs. They're busy. They don't give" to causes outside their own families, Degefa said.

"Tamiru is one person who benefited from the community center and now gives to the community center," Kebede said, offering her friend a tired smile.

"I want people who come after me to benefit," he replied. "The center is something that binds us together. This is our safety net."