Tenants Demand Rental Reform

Prostitution, Poor Security and Rodents Found in Apartment Buildings, Many Say

More than 125 tenants and advocates gathered at St. Aloysius Church yesterday to demand that the District accelerate its efforts to combat abuses in rental housing.

Speakers urged city inspectors to do a better job finding code violations, which they said include poor security, plumbing problems and rodent infestations. Other proposals included a right for tenants to sue negligent landlords and for the use of District funds to make repairs to problematic buildings.

"I think it's incredible that this is happening in Washington," said Blanca Cecilia Contreras, who lives in the Pershing House apartments in Northwest. Last year, three men were shot, one fatally, during a break-in there, and Contreras said that prostitution and crime were ongoing problems in hallways.

The building's management has not done anything to improve conditions, Contreras said. Instead, it encouraged tenants to vacate, she said.

"If you're afraid to live here, leave!" she recounted being told.

Jose Rodriguez, a representative of Modern Property Management, which oversees Contreras's building, denied that tenants had been told to vacate. He said he did not know of prostitution in the building's hallways, though he was aware of prostitution in the apartments.

D.C. Council members Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) and Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) attended. Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large) and Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) sent representatives.

"It's a war to ensure quality housing is a right in the District of Columbia," Graham said. "We have made great strides. . . . I know we have a long way to go."

"I don't know how [slumlords] sleep at night," he said later.

Bowser and Wells also spoke in favor of the proposals.

D.C. tenants have the right to vote to block condominium conversion. But a Washington Post investigation in March showed a pattern of landlords taking advantage of a legal loophole by neglecting their buildings, forcing tenants to vacate. When buildings become vacant, landlords can convert them without a vote, often making millions of dollars in the process.

The D.C. Council subsequently enacted emergency legislation that forced several buildings into receivership, giving the city the power to direct rental revenues toward fixing the worst of the problems.

Nick Majett, a deputy director at the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, the agency that inspects housing, announced at the meeting that DCRA will create a system by October in which buildings with the most egregious violations will be inspected twice a year. All buildings will be inspected at least every other year.

Other speakers at the meeting warned tenants not to expect overnight changes.

"This is a process. It takes time," said Johanna Shreve, the District's chief tenant advocate. Shreve said that there will be another open meeting in September during which tenants can give feedback about the reforms.

But, Shreve said, "the housing providers in this city have been put on notice."