Southeast Apartments to Get $4 Million Renovation

Complex to Remain Low-Income Housing

Wheeler Terrace, a 118-unit affordable-housing apartment complex in Anacostia, will undergo a $4 million renovation project headed by two nonprofit organizations dedicated to low-income housing, officials announced last week.

The project will be overseen by Enterprise Community Partners and the Community Preservation Development Corp. Enterprise is providing $50,000 to ensure that the project will be green, with environmentally safe paint, carpets and other flooring.

Wheeler Terrace residents have worked in partnership with the Community Preservation Development Corp. to begin the renovation. No one will be displaced when the renovation is finished, and the apartments will remain low-income housing.

Residents exercised their right to purchase the building under the District's tenant purchase law.

Garlenda Joyner, president of the Wheeler Terrace Apartments Tenants Association, led residents in selecting CPDC as a development partner, after hearing proposals from various developers. The Community Preservation Development Corp. was favored because it is located in the District.

"We agreed that we weren't going to deal with anyone who we couldn't visit at their office," Joyner said.

Over the years, residents had expressed concern over crime near the apartments, which are on Valley Avenue. Joyner said that their concerns were not addressed by Wheeler Terraces' previous owners, and that the problems were exacerbated by a weak police presence.

"I asked a cop one time if disturbing the peace was still against the law, and he told me, 'As long as it's not on Valley Avenue,' " she said.

Joyner said the Community Preservation Development Corp. had kept its promise to provide security after several incidents of gun violence, and went a long way to show residents that the group would be attentive to their concerns. The Community Preservation Development Corp. began working with Wheeler Terrace residents in November.

David Bowers, the local office director for Enterprise, said it is becoming increasingly necessary to have a commitment to affordable housing in Southeast.

"That part of Washington, east of the river, is really the last critical mass of affordable housing stock," he said. "You see more and more people over the last couple of years starting to look there as the next frontier for investments. So this is a key preservation."

Bowers said using environmentally sound building materials -- carpets that won't attract dirt, and paints that aren't linked to asthma, for example -- is a particularly important component of low-income housing.

"What often gets lost in the discussion about living green is that often, low-income folks and persons of color are disproportionately impacted by respiratory illness," he said. "Many times that's related to the fact that they're living in substandard housing. What we will have is an environment where we provide affordable housing to low-income persons, but also housing that's healthy."

Wheeler Terrace residents will be rotated around the development's seven buildings as the buildings are renovated two at a time. Joyner said that the two-year time frame for completion might seem far away, but that the long-term results will benefit the community.

"I know that once this project is completed, it will give us a lot of hope," she said. "It will give our children self-confidence and self-worth. It will be an extremely positive blessing."