The Purchase Of a Lifetime

The tenants formed an association and elected Thomas president. They could not have picked a more committed leader, or someone who had more at stake.

She'd lived on W Street for nearly 30 years. Her life, in dramatic ways, had paralleled the fortunes of the block.

When it was a respectable working-class haven, she was a church-going young woman who made good grades and followed the strict rules laid down by her mother, a hotel maid. By her mid-twenties, though, the 1400 block had become the city's largest open-air narcotics bazaar, so bad that police sometimes barricaded the street in a futile attempt to keep the addicts away. Thomas was living in an apartment a few doors down from Capital Manor, working a series of low-paying jobs. She steered clear of drugs for awhile but eventually tried crack cocaine and got hooked. Already the mother of two sons by two men, she gave birth three months early to a daughter who, she soon learned, was blind.

Thomas decided that she could not be both a mother and a crackhead. "I just stopped" using drugs, she said. She was working again and leading tree-planting efforts to beautify her battered neighborhood when an estranged boyfriend hurled a Molotov cocktail through the open window of her apartment, setting it ablaze and leaving her severely burned.

By this time, the U Street Metro station had opened, and the drug trade was melting away. Luxury developers were buying up long-empty lots.

Back on her feet, Thomas became immersed in the issues transforming W street and was elected an advisory neighborhood commissioner. With the help of a federal housing voucher, she rented a three-bedroom apartment in Capital Manor. When the complex was put on the market the next year, she saw her chance.

Ownership would mean stability -- for her family and her neighbors. "I don't want my kids to have to grow up and struggle. I want them to have a place," Thomas would say. "They'll never have to worry where they're going to live."

"If you can't put together a yard sale, how are you going to buy this building?"

Marian Siegel, a housing counselor

Thomas's top lieutenants were Peggy Fitzgerald, an old friend who was elected association vice president, and Osmin Rodriguez, a Salvadoran immigrant who had moved into the complex as resident manager five years earlier.

Fitzgerald, 59, had lived at Capital Manor for 28 years and had no intention of ever leaving. She'd raised three children and was now raising two grandchildren. Divorced for two decades, Fitzgerald had worked construction until her mid-fifties, then retired on disability after her back gave out. She struggled with diabetes and high blood pressure. Now she spent her time plotting strategy with Thomas and tracking tenant association dues and membership figures.

Rodriguez, 35, often worked alongside them, acting as a liaison to the Latino tenants. As resident manager, he earned more than most Capital Manor tenants, enough that a small house in the suburbs would not have been out of reach for him, his wife and their toddler son.