The Word Is Out About Bloomingdale

"It's way nicer than it used to be," she said of the neighborhood where she has lived nearly all her life. "People used to get shot. People used to sell drugs. Places used to get robbed. Most of it's stopped."

Her block started improving when the vacant apartment building across the street was renovated and turned into condos, she said. There were more than a half-dozen abandoned houses on her block a few years ago, she said.

In 2000, nearly 20 percent of the housing stock was vacant, the Census found.

"People live in all the houses now, except for that one -- they're working on it," Stephanie said.

"I just think everything's changed for the better," she said. "I know a lot of people don't like it because the cost of housing has gone up, but it's just good people moving in."

Thomas Reel, who has been renting in Bloomingdale for five years, is one of those with mixed feelings about the changes. He said police cameras have made the neighborhood safer, though he still worries about his 11-year-old daughter.

But it's no longer affordable, he said. He pointed to a basement apartment and said that landlords, when they find out a tenant has a Section 8 rent subsidy, will jack up the rent from the listed $800 a month to close to the program maximum for a two-bedroom apartment, $1,200. "When those people move out, that's what they think they can get," he said.

And they do, sometimes. Marissa Jennings shares a two-bedroom basement apartment with her mother. It costs $1,200. Jennings looked in other transitional parts of Northwest before choosing Bloomingdale a year ago.

Although the neighborhood isn't particularly close to a Metro station, it's still convenient, she said. "Even yesterday, I took the bus to go downtown," she said. "It took me less than 15 minutes."

Even as prices go up, there are still affordable rentals available. Petrona Chavez and her husband moved into their apartment in a rowhouse two years ago and pay $700. She said she thinks the neighborhood has gotten safer since they moved in. "The area, the atmosphere, it's changed," she said in Spanish.

Matt Waldron agrees that crime is waning. He and his wife bought a condo on Rhode Island Avenue in 2004 for $300,000. They had been outbid on at least eight places in the Columbia Heights, H Street NE, Brookland and Gallaudet areas.

"The first month we moved in, we were breaking up a mugging," he said. As the couple were out walking their large dogs about 10:30 p.m., they saw a woman on a bicycle being hit by a man trying to take the bike, he said. Waldron's wife charged, and the man ran. "Luckily, the girl wasn't hurt," he said.