The National Low Income Housing Coalition just came out with its 2011 data dump, and D.C. residents shouldn't be that surprised: Our fair city is second only to Hawaii in the price of its rental housing.
More specifically, the NLIHC calculates the "housing wage," which is the full-time hourly wage a household would need to earn [...]
Here's the lesson of Gibson Plaza, the 10-story Shaw behemoth housing mostly Section 8 tenants: If you suffer through bad conditions long enough, you might just be there when a fantastic upgrade comes around.
The 217-unit building hadn't had a major renovation since it was built, back in 1974, by the development arm of First Rising [...]
Walking into the Temple of Praise near the end of a service is like lifting the lid of a tea kettle: The energy inside the Southern Avenue SE church is so intense, with worshipers dancing and wailing and fainting in the aisles, that it seems like it could boil over at any minute. Even when [...]
If the word "zoning" makes your eyes glaze over, get yourself some coffee or something and try to focus for a second.
Here's the thing: For a few years now, the Office of Planning has been working on revamping the rules that govern how the city looks and feels. Regulations that dictate how many parking spaces [...]
It's a tentative plan, but a plan nonetheless: Lincoln Westmoreland Housing Inc. is moving forward with a 50-unit apartment complex on 7th and R Street NW, right next to the 10-story behemoth constructed right after the 1968 riots.
The new building, designed by Shalom Baranes architects, could not be more ideally located: It sits directly above [...]
Tucked just off busy Monroe Street NE in Brookland, an artist's paradise is taking shape: The Artspace apartments at Danceplace, where a few dozen lucky creative types will be living and working by this time next year.
The 41-unit project, funded by a combination of federal stimulus money and city and non-profit grants, broke ground in [...]
Everybody knows that everybody wants to live around metro stops–and as living car-free becomes a more viable option in cities, living close to mass transit is an increasingly valuable commodity. How can we keep that housing available for low-income people? Inclusionary Zoning, as we discussed last week, is certainly part of the equation. The District [...]
Back in May, DCMud stopped by opening day of artist housing at the Loree Grand in NoMA–30 live/work units set aside exclusively for those who could qualify as arts-related people, in partnership with the Cultural Development Center. The professional requirements were not stringent, the units were widely marketed, and interest seemed high. But according to [...]
Today's Wall Street Journal has a piece about a bizarre trend out there in Real America: Owners of large, luxury housing complexes so desperate for rent that they're chasing after holders of Section 8 vouchers, who previously had to make do with the most basic accomodations. It's creating a wider range of housing options for [...]
A couple weeks ago, I previewed the campaign that D.C. affordable housing advocates were launching to push for better funding and administration of the District's housing programs. Now, they've got the materials online: A campaign video, plus a dense report on the need for a "continuum of affordable housing," or options from homelessness relief to [...]
