Testing the Boundaries

Latinos Trade Renting in Familiar Enclaves for Owning East of the Anacostia

When Delmy Diaz decided to buy a home, she first looked in Columbia Heights. That's where her friends and relatives and favorite stores were.

But with a $26,000 annual salary from the Gap, she could not afford the one-bedroom condominiums there, which had price tags above $200,000.

Then someone at the Latino Economic Development Corp., a nonprofit group that helps Latinos start businesses and buy homes, encouraged her to look in a place she never would have thought of on her own: east of the Anacostia River. In December, Diaz bought a two-bedroom condo on Brandywine Street SE in Washington Highlands for $147,000.

Since 2000, Latinos have accounted for a larger percentage of home purchases in the District, going from 4 percent to 7 percent. But with traditionally Hispanic D.C. enclaves out of reach to many because of inflated prices, many Latinos who want to buy homes in the District are searching in neighborhoods they once shunned. One result is a migration to the largely African American neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. Though small, the Latino presence is sprinkling diversity over some parts of Southeast Washington, residents and housing officials said.

"East of the river is becoming a more diverse community overall, from what we are seeing," said Marian Siegel, executive director of Housing Counseling Services, a nonprofit organization that offers counseling to low- and moderate-income renters and home buyers.

Once known for high crime, poor schools and dilapidated buildings, the area stretching from south of the 11th Street Bridge to Bolling Air Force Base has had a renaissance in recent years, with thousands of new housing units built or planned. Restaurants and shops are also on the horizon.

"When I started working in this area, Southeast was another country in the Latino community," said Fernando Lemos, executive director of Mi Casa, a nonprofit developer of affordable housing.

Traditionally, many local Latinos who have wanted to buy homes have moved to Montgomery, Prince George's and Prince William counties. But housing in those areas has also gotten expensive. Although the majority of Latino homeowners are still in the suburbs, those who want to remain in the District but have modest incomes have increasingly opted to buy homes outside of the wards where they have already established footholds.

Latinos make up 10 to 12 percent of the District's population, said George Escobar, director of the mayor's Office on Latino Affairs. The areas with the highest concentrations of Latinos are Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant in Ward 1; Shaw and Logan Circle in Ward 2; and Petworth and 16th Street Heights in Ward 4.

When the housing boom began in 2000, Latinos hoping to achieve the dream of homeownership began to disperse. The number of Latino homeowners increased in Ward 5, which includes Trinidad and Brookland, and Ward 6, encompassing Capitol Hill and the Southwest waterfront.

In 2000, there was just one Latino home purchaser in each of the two wards east of the river. In 2005, the most recent year for which data are available, there were 59 Latino home buyers in Ward 7 and 21 in Ward 8, according to NeighborhoodInfo DC, a partnership between the Urban Institute and the Local Initiatives Support Corp.

Officials at agencies that help Latinos buy homes said that since 2005, they have noticed more Latinos opting to buy east of the river, often at their urging.