Some people feel that they are entitled to everything. I don’t happen to feel that way. As I said, I am a landlord. I have seen the effects of giving out free housing. I have also seen the effects of artificially holding rents low even when there is more affordable housing available elsewhere.

Both ultimately hurt the poor much more than they hurt the well to do. For it keeps them in substandard housing thinking that they can’t do better and it allows the more affluent to get the same rent controlled benefit that should accrue to the poor. Who, with a straight face, can say that someone like me should be afforded the same rent control regulation as a inner city school teacher?

In my building in AM, the landlord has just been replacing older tenants as they leave with newer ones and renting the units at market rate without making any improvements whatsoever. The rental market is so tight here, he can do it.

Usually, the vacant units get higher rents, up to the allowable maximum, whether or not the landlord actually fixes them up. The other residents may benefit from better maintenance (and wealthier new neighbors), or the landlord may try to push them out through a slew of hassling techniques — no maintenance, repairs at inconvenient times, etc. Landlords can also try to buy them out, often on the cheap, or intimidate them through all sorts of threats, especially threats of calling immigration or trying to confuse elderly folks. And, of course, they can make the building uninhabitable and then try to flip it.

So, there’s no clear pattern. It can be win/win for all. But those new condo dwellers can find themselves living right next door to a slumlord who owns a 1/2 vacant building he can neither rent nor develop– which is what happened to the building next to my house.

OtisGal, the washpost pointed less than 300 buildings/houses in the entire city with landlord issues. Many of these properties were owned by the same people. As such, the Post likely overstated the issue.

For the person commenting on their English basement, that just goes to show that DC has affordable housing. Much of it just isn’t desirable due to location and or safety. DC would do much to address the affordability issue by addressing the safety of neighborhoods in SE and NE. I have had places for rent in SE that are really nice. W/D in the unit. Yet, there is a segment of the population in this city that wouldn’t even consider renting the unit if it were free. That’s not as much of a judgment on the people as it is the ineffectiveness of DC keeping all areas safe.