It Feels Like Home, Faults and All

When friends come over, they say: I didn't know this was here. They don't expect the Anacostia they find.

Catherine Buell, 28, gets the same reaction from friends. She moved to Anacostia two years ago after realizing she had been priced out of places like Mount Rainier in Prince George's and LeDroit Park in the District. Her real estate agent and friends were skeptical about Southeast, but she was drawn to the 100-year-old architecture, the proximity to downtown and the tranquillity of Anacostia Park.

"Anacostia was my little utopia," says Buell, a native of Silver Spring.

Then she was robbed. She began to rethink her move.

I write about crime and punishment and its impact on families. Through these stories, I often meet youth recently released from Oak Hill, the city's juvenile detention facility in Laurel, where the most dangerous offenders are held.

In the crowds of young men on the corner, I now recognize some of the faces. I stop to chat, or just blow my horn in recognition. I hope none of them were among the group that accosted Buell, a slight woman, as she walked to her car that Friday night in October. The one with the gun, Buell says, seemed afraid as she "screamed bloody murder." She was, too.

Buell considered leaving but is staying put. She's been asked to join the board of the Anacostia Economic Development Corp. and the Historic Preservation Review Board.

She wants to be a part of what Anacostia is going to be. Like the rest of us, she runs into skepticism. It's different than gentrification elsewhere in the city, because most newcomers here are black, like the longtime residents.

But we're not from here. We are outsiders. And people are afraid they are being pushed out. That the newcomers -- doctors, lawyers, accountants -- are black, doesn't matter that much.

"They're suspicious," Buell says. "They don't know why we're so excited to be here."

That, too, is understandable.

Change is already underway. There's a new office building at the intersection of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. Just up the road, near the Anacostia Metro station, stands a new Salvation Army headquarters.