MANNA Up: Jim Dickerson and Frank Demarais say the city’s stiffing affordable condo owners.

Tanya Davis spends most of her hours on the couch, watching cable television shows depicting graphic surgeries and other invasive medical procedures.

It’s not that she’s lost her job or depressed. She’s bed-ridden, waiting for her baby—“Ella” is the chosen name—to be born, and the due date is in December.

Pregnant for the first time at 40, Davis’ delivery anxiety is driving her TV habits: She wants to familiarize herself as much as possible with health care jargon and hospital-speak. Fortunately, that particular worry will fade; the real stress point is what happens after the baby comes.

If Davis feels imprisoned in her apartment now, she suspects the sense of entrapment will only grow. These two bedrooms, this living room nook, and this open linoleum kitchen in her condo are sufficient—for the moment. But three years down the road, her toddler will be running around bumping into things, and Davis and her husband might want another child. Then what? Move?

Read More “D.C.’s Designated Affordable Condos Are Great—Just Don’t Move Any Time Soon” »

This piece will appear in this week’s print edition of the Washington City Paper.

In mid-June, Angela Peltzer moved into her brand-new condo at 14th Street and Florida Avenue NW with views of the Capitol, the Washington Monument, and possibly the Anacostia River.

“I think I can see the new stadium,” she says.

The purchase is a coup for someone who never thought she could afford a condo, wasn’t looking for one, and ended up paying below market price.

“I thought I was so far away from it,” she says. “My career had been in nonprofits and traveling around, and I never had any money.”

But last year, after attending a women’s seminar—“something along the terms of financial management, creating wealth”—she heard a lucky tip from a fellow attendee: A new building called the Solea was holding a lottery for designated affordable condos.

Read More “The City Forces Developers to Sell Cheap Condos. But Can You Find Them?” »