Residents Try to Rescue D.C. Co-op

Estes has lived in Sursum Corda for 25 years. She raised three children on "what used to be called public assistance," as she put it. She went to work briefly in the 1980s but quit because she feared her son would fall in with drug dealers if she were not home to watch him. Now that her kids are grown, she spends her time writing children's books she hopes to publish and fulfilling the duties of board president.

Lately, those duties have consisted largely of badgering residents to cooperate with KSI contractors, who are busily patching walls, fixing roofs and changing locks. When HUD inspectors come in August, every unit might be inspected. If the windows do not open, if extension cords snake around, if roaches scuttle through kitchens, the complex could fail and wind up on the auction block.

Estes is so nervous about her neighbors that she is thinking about evicting recalcitrant ones. She has urged the board to empty the place on inspection day by arranging a free trip to Six Flags America.

"I'm serious as a heart attack," she said at a recent board meeting. "We could call it Sursum Corda Family Day. Load 'em up on a bus and cart 'em away."

Estes confided later that, for the first time in the year-long crisis, she was frightened. "All the obstacles HUD put before us, I was never afraid," she said. "I'm afraid now because our fate lies in our hands."

The foreclosure threat is the latest chapter in a long history of trouble at Sursum Corda. Built in 1969 as one of the nation's first subsidized housing complexes, its name is Latin for "lift up your hearts." Twenty years later, the place was so badly managed that tenants demanded and received HUD approval to purchase the property. With a HUD mortgage and about $65,000 a month in HUD rent subsidies, conditions improved. But then a new management company let the complex fall into debt and disrepair. Drug dealers settled into vacant units and, in January 2004, executed a 14-year-old girl who witnessed a killing.

Last year, Sursum Corda failed two inspections. HUD threatened foreclosure. And Sursum Corda asked Manna Inc., a nonprofit developer, for help.

Manna hired a new management company and sought grants to begin correcting a list of health and safety violations that ran more than 300 pages. Residents elected a new board of directors, mainly women with many years at Sursum Corda, plus Shiv Newaldass, 24, a Georgetown University graduate who grew up in the complex.

"We were able to show a lot of progress," said Manna President George Rothman, but he said HUD "still didn't have confidence" in Sursum Corda's ability to manage its affairs. HUD issued a foreclosure notice in January, saying new owners were essential to saving the property.

Manna and the city offered to redevelop Sursum Corda, but the board was wary. Estes said the city has a terrible reputation for putting people out of their homes and then forcing them to pass criminal and credit checks to get back in. And Manna never seemed to give them straight answers, she said. Manna and Sursum Corda parted ways in February.

Board members cast about for other options. One called Chestnut, a relative who once worked as a community organizer in Baltimore. He had not been particularly successful there. City officials said they cut off funding to two groups Chestnut led because they failed to reach their goals. In 2003, the Southern Mondawmin Improvement Association accused him of stealing money and fired him as executive director.

No charges were filed, and Chestnut called the allegations unfounded. He was working as a trash collector when he impressed the Sursum board with his ability to talk to developers and government people. They hired him in March.