Mission: Affordable

She found the daylong course tedious at times, since she was not a total novice to the home-buying process. She knew all about getting your credit in order. It is part of her job, as a social worker, to teach people about the importance of having good credit. Plus, a lender had already pre-approved her to buy a home when she was looking three years ago.

After the seminar, Jill signed up for the notification list and applied for Arlington County's low-interest loans for first-time home buyers.

Within about six weeks, the county alerted Jill about a condo that had opened up at Arlington Oaks for $180,000. She snapped it up, closing in May and moving in July, after her lease ended.

She said the area's apartment rents are higher than her monthly mortgage payments. Jill likes that she was able to paint the interior of her place sage green without having to ask anyone for permission.

"I love that it's mine. It's just a piece of mind that I feel, like the money is going to come back to me," she said. "And I can change the color tomorrow if I want."

Jill says AHC and Arlington County made the procedure painless.

"I was proactive, but I found it incredibly easy," she said. "It's a very well-oiled machine." In fact, she opted to use one of the lenders she met at the registration seminar as her own lender.

However, there was some fine print. When Jill sells the condo, she has to let AHC buy it back for below the housing market rate at the time of sale. The unit has to go back into the pot of homes reserved for moderate-income families. And because Jill didn't buy the condo at market value, she can't sell it at market price. She will receive the sale price plus 2 to 3 percent appreciation per year.

AHC has renovated and sold about 24 units to people like Jill since purchasing 60 apartments at Arlington Oaks two years ago, said Rick Holliday, AHC's homeownership asset manager. Though the building is more than 60 years old, the condos have new kitchens, new appliances, new floors and, in some cases, new windows and bathrooms.

Holliday agrees that the concept of work force housing -- selling a certain number of units at below-market prices -- is cost-prohibitive.

"We don't really make any money on selling these affordable units," he said. AHC sells some units at market rate -- starting at $250,000 -- just to break even on the whole project.

At present, AHC does not have future plans for another project like Arlington Oaks, but not for lack of trying. "We're always looking. It's very difficult to find projects like this in Arlington, because the prices are so high for condos," Holliday said. He expects that within the next three years, all the reduced-price units at Arlington Oaks will be gone.

In D.C., there are also new homeownership programs aimed at local worker bees. The National Capital Revitalization Corporation, the District's development arm, administers a work force housing policy for both low-income and moderate-income people. Anyone between 30 percent and 80 percent of D.C.'s AMI, which is $90,300 for a four-person household (huduser.org/Datasets/IL/IL06/dc_fy2006.pdf) can apply to purchase affordable-rate condos, while people between 80 percent and 120 percent of D.C.'s AMI can apply for work force condos.

In 2000, the D.C. Council transferred $297 million worth of property to NCRC for redevelopment.

Today, the nonprofit organization requires that housing developers who build on that property sell a certain number of units to people whose incomes fall between the affordable or work force range.

For example, the 29-unit Hayes Street condo building in the Northeast neighborhood of Deanwood plans to sell all units at work force rates. In this instance, the community is open to all home buyers, no matter their income. One-bedrooms and two-bedrooms will likely start in the upper $100s and go up to the low $300s. Units will deliver around late 2007.

The redevelopment of the Skyland Shopping Center in Southeast Washington, envisioned as an 18.5-acre town square, will bring more work force condos to the city.

The details are unknown, but the complex will include retail space on the ground-level with a mix of affordable-, work force- and market-rate condos on a second level. At least 20 percent of the units will be sold below market rate.

Rose Lindsay, NCRC senior portfolio project manager, said: "We are talking to the community and the community is helping us shape the retail that is going into that space."

She says that this kind of mixed-use project can help offset the cost of affordable and work force housing, which could make the concept more palatable to developers.

"Everybody is aware that the Department of Housing and Urban Development tax credits and incentives [cannot] create the housing for the work force individuals who are in the city every day," Lindsay said, adding that NCRC is one of several nonprofit organizations in D.C. attempting to prompt builders to do something about the deficiency.

NCRC markets its work force policy to D.C. Public Schools teachers through fliers on school walls and a link on the DCPS Web site. NCRC also advertises homeowner-ship opportunities on D.C. government payroll stubs.

Brian Friedman, managing director of real estate developer FMG, said he is pursuing a small project, the proposed Unity Square Condominiums, to fill a specific void in D.C.'s work force housing.

The property, which he says will be renamed once it is green-lighted, is a planned conversion of a domed 1907 church, one of the oldest buildings in Adams Morgan. Friedman hopes to get zoning approval by winter, go to construction next year and deliver around summer 2008.

His ideal customers are people with families who grew up in Adams Morgan and now can't afford to live there anymore, as well as anyone else who qualifies for low-income programs.

The objective is to provide family-size, roomy, reduced-rate homes, rather than cramp workers and their families into small efficiencies in 200-unit high-rises where upper-income residents own all the choice property.

"I'd rather have one 1,500-square-foot unit that a family of five can live in than five, 300-square-foot units that only one guy can live in," Friedman said.

"You don't want someone to say, 'I'm living in a million dollar property, and I really don't fit in at all.'"

He is working with mortgage brokers, banks and the D.C. government to establish his own financial assistance program for eligible buyers.

Friedman knows the community's economic conditions firsthand, having bought a condo in the neighborhood for $60,000 in 1997 that he watched appreciate seven-fold by the time another owner recently sold it for $400,000. "I knew that the people I bought it from, they could never come back to the neighborhood," he said.

Today, Friedman bristles when he sees Adams Morgan denizens shoved out of the neighborhood to make room for luxury homes, he adds.

"They have the right to stay," he said. "They are firemen and police officers. Some of them are working the local shops. The people who create revenue for the community should have the ability to live there."

This article first ran in Express on October 26, 2006.