As I documented in this week's cover story on Osman Abdullahi's death, the problems at 830 7th Street NE were vast. Abdullahi was left without meds in a house without heat and very little food. There was the thinnest of safety nets for Abdullahi and his fellow tenants. After the shooting, the building's manager Mark Spence simply shut the home down. Without the proper notification or going through Landlord-Tenant Court, he kicked everyone out and locked the doors. Last Friday, I reported that city officials still aren't sure where the tenants ended up.

An unlicensed home means simply that the tenants are left in particularly vulnerable positions. But one former Spence tenant did fight his eviction. He took Spence to court.

After the Department of Mental Health in 2003 ordered its staff and service providers from ever placing its people in Spence's homes, Spence continued to operate unabated. One tenant took him to court.

In December 2003, Lawrence Winston filed a wrongful eviction civil suit against Spence. He sought a temporary restraining order and $6,000 in damages. He alleged that Spence had not only evicted him without notice but took all of his belongings (TV, sofa, other electronic equipment).

Winston wrote to the court: "I don't know where anything is. I have no food, clothes, or place to stay for me or my son."

A Superior Court judge granted Winston the restraining order and then extended it–ordering Spence to allow Winston to return to his apartment and give him back his possessions. The judge wrote that Spence "is not to harass plaintiff in any manner" and that Winston's personal property must be returned by January 30, 2004.

I asked Spence about Winston. He says Winston was referred to him by a church. He claims that Winston didn't pay rent. "He's a get-over artist," Spence says. "I didn't have any of his stuff. I never had his stuff. He did that to just say something to go down to civil court. He didn't have nothing but a bag when he came [to me]....He's a con artist. I felt played."

On June 14, 2004, Winston filed a motion against Spence for contempt. Spence still hadn't returned his things. On August 6, a judge found Spence in contempt.

A few years later, a landlord sued Spence for more than $7,000 in unpaid rent over an apartment he had given to a mentally-ill man. The landlord refused comment for this piece (they had another case against Spence as well).

"They no longer wanted those clients in the apartment," Spence says. "They wanted to remove the clients so that's what they did. They were paid up in full. That was just their way of going to court."

On January 26, Osman Abdullahi was gunned down by D.C. Police after an altercation inside his unlicensed group home. The home, located at 830 7th Street NE, had no heat, very little food, and no supervision. Abdullahi wasn't taking his medication at the time. The home's manager Mark Spence has a long history with troubled group homes. We published a cover story on Spence's activities and Abdullahi this week.

Within a few days of the incident, Spence effectively shutdown his group home. The lights were turned off. The doors were locked. A mysterious notice to "correct" or "vacate" was placed on the door.

The Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs told me they have no record of posting such a notice on the door of 830 7th Street NE. The notice cited overcrowding as an issue. Spence had 30 days to correct the overcrowding problem or face some kind of fine or eviction. I saw the notice. The notice did not have DCRA letterhead or a name and phone number of an inspector who made the determination.

I asked Spence about the note. He told me the building's owner could have posted it. He added that he had cleared everyone out of the building. This is a clear violation of landlord-tenant regs. No one stopped Mr. Spence from ignoring the law.

The Office of the D.C. Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program has had frequent encounters with Spence’s work, dating to 1999, according to Jerry Kasunic, the office’s current director.

Today, Kasunic met with the Department of Mental Health. He had one question for the department: Where did the residents of 830 7th Street NE go?

The department's answer: We don't know.

Kasunic sounded frustrated on the phone. "I don't know where they went," he says. "I want to make sure they have support services that they need whether its medical, psychiatric, any kind of coaching and counseling."

Kasunic had just gotten back from his meeting with DMH officials. He says he hopes to have information on the residents within a week or two.

"The longer the people are without the proper support systems the better the chance that someone is going to relapse and end up in an ER room or a psych unit," Kasunic says. "They need the proper case management."

If Spence was a licensed provider, the residents of 830 7th Street would have been given a 21-day notice of eviction, counseling before the 21-day notice, and a proper transfer to another facility or group home.

Instead, the residents were just dumped. “No one is stepping up to the plate to find these people,” Kasunic says.

Look at it. Go ahead and stare. This is what a District group house looks like. This is the scene from the Jan. 26th police shooting death of Osman Abdullahi. He had been suffering from schizophrenia. He had been living at this group home, located at 830 7th St. NE, since Nov. 1.

The Department of Mental Health has repeatedly stressed that this was not technically a group home. It was not one of their own. It had not been licensed as one. It didn't get a handy acronym that I won't even bother explaining. It didn't have the proper paperwork. But it was a group home. Many of its tenants were mentally ill. [All five I talked to or researched had been in the system]. All were unsupervised. This house had a history, a backstory. Abdullahi had a story, too. We first wrote about the incident later that night. I get to expand on my reporting for this week's cover.

While DMH gets to breathe a sigh of relief that this wasn't one of their own homes, its people were still inside. Its people were living without food, without heat, without meds, without supervision. So take a look at where some D.C. residents were living. Who's going to prevent this from happening again? Who's going to make sure there's someone competent watching over our most vulnerable? While DMH is investigating the house, the big question is: Did any of their people ever do a site visit, ever actually come to the house?

More pictures after the jump.

The kitchen sink as of January 27.

The freezer.

The cupboards.

I will be posting more pictures of 830 7th St. NE throughout the week.