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Anyone Know What’s Going on With the Sorrento at 18th and Kalorama?
Clearly someone is upset by the construction:
Anyone know the details of what’s going on here?
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11th
12:02am
+1 just not getting what the hope was of posting this. 
Teej
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Not sure what the scrawl on the sign about, but the Sorrento is part of Jubilee Housing, which is nonprofit, low-income housing. The Sorrento and the Euclid are the last two Jubilee properties that are being completely renovated. All tenants are temporarily being housed elsewhere (paying the same rates they did at the Sorrento and Euclid) and will all return when the buildings are complete.
Jubilee is a good poverty pimp.
Tens of millions of our tax dollars are spent every ten years on this property…
The Sorrento at 2233 18th Street, NW is undergoing its third major multi million dollar renovation in as many decades -all provided for by our tax dollars.
The very lucky residents of the 31 units in this building, without working and saving to make any down payment or any significant investment, will once again have new kitchens, new baths, new air conditioning and heating in each apartment, special new elevator, even new carpeting in the apartments, etc.
Our tax dollars (more than $20 million) has been devoted to the repeated upkeep of this property since this project was acquired in 1978 by Jubilee Housing.
By comparison, in the private sector, a new luxury condominium on a larger parcel just a block away with some high end million dollar apartments went up from scratch with underground parking for much less than half of what’s been spent on The Sorrento and was privately funded.
It’s an old debate, but it does make you wonder why these special 31 units should be able to occupy the same neighborhood for just a few hundred dollars a month from each unit and why taxpayers should have to make the subsidy every month and then the huge renovations every ten years ?
http://www.jubileehousing.org/properties/property.cfm?id=10
Yes all the poor people should be dumped in crappy neighborhoods with substandard housing…. (in case you didn’t catch it that was sarcasm)
Truthfully I get more pissed at corporate interest who want to say – build a stadium – and get millions and millions of dollars in tax breaks to build something for big entertainment interests but little social utility that often drains the surrounding neighborhood because most of the time the facility is dark.
Are you nuts? What kind of fascist system do you operate in? The poor people should get housing the same way rich people do, at auction. Auction is the only fair way to distribute housing.
Look, I wanted to buy in one neighborhood and I didn’t have much money so I fought like hell until I found the last cheap property in my neighborhood and bought it. I have neighbors who spent $1 million+ and one nearby neighbor who spent $2 million.
However I bought the crappiest place and spent 10 years fixing it up.
OR I could have bought a GREAT place in a bad neighborhood.
Either way when I was poor I wasn’t DUMPED ANYWHERE jackass, I was smart and I made my own decisions.
you disgust me.
I hear ya buddy. Why cant these people all just go to college and get high-paying jobs?
I hear your sarcasm because we all know that a certain kind of people can’t ever get into college!
Sheesh, racist much while pretending not to be racist? look at yourself in a mirror.
You’re right, a certain kind of people can’t ever get into college: dumb people.
You kind of missed the point of my sarcasm.
Wow, Anonymous, did you even read the website you posted? You state that the residents who live there “without working” yet if you read the website you will find this information:
The majority of Jubilee Housing’s residents are employed predominately in the essential low-wage service sector. Residents work as teacher’s aides, cooks and dishwashers, parking attendants, in sanitation and housekeeping, as home health workers and in other similar indispensable jobs that provide the workforce supporting our nation’s service economy.
Not to mention the fact that Jubilee raises a huge amount of money from individuals and foundations and to imply that all this work is done with tax dollars is just false.
As for the old debate, yep, it is old and it is tired. Some people think we should help people and others don’t.
Anonymous, your opinion are that of a know nothing dirty bag, I live in this building. I work every day and I contribute to the help the poor.
Reread his comment, he never said the residents don’t hold jobs. You’re way off.
SSM, just out of curiosity, any reason for the regular/decade renovations or was that just BS from anonymous?
@Anonymous 5:49 is so out of touch I don’t know where to begin.
First of all the “luxury condos” with parking garage they refer to are The Lofts, which while no, they did not get any city money, did get a special exception to build their property right up to the alley with no setback whatsoever and the folks who have moved into those “luxury condos” have proceeded to complain almost daily about the bars on 18th Street…In addition, the parking garage that was supposed to be such a great community amenity is not that at all…everyone knows that there was more available parking when that was just a dirt lot before they built the “luxury condos.” So I’m not really sure about why this was even brought up (perhaps Anonymous is a disgruntled condo owner at The Lofts).
Secondly, yes, Jubilee does get city money (as others have pointed out, they also raise an incredible amount of money from foundations), but if Anonymous would get his/her head out of their rear, they would know that so do large developers of “luxury” condos. Donatelli just got a $20M tax deal from the city, Persius is getting $8M in tax relief, just to name two…
And as for the statement about people in The Sorrento not working, well every person I know who live in Jubilee (and I know a lot) have a job.
Ahhhhhh….crap like the post by anonymous send me off my nut. Gotta stop reading the comments in the New Year.
“if Anonymous would get his/her head out of their rear, they would know that so do large developers of “luxury” condos. Donatelli just got a $20M tax deal from the city, Persius is getting $8M in tax relief, just to name two…”
Inefficient policy and corruption rolls both uphill and down, neither one justifies the other.
I have volunteered for Jubilee, I think it’s a noble cause, but I can’t understand why they would continue to provide affordable housing on property that has appreciated considerably over the last several decades. It seems to me, relocating residents further East would yield more ‘bang for their buck’, providing more affordable housing for more people. The housing could be located within the same proximity to public transit as the current dwelling, but in an area that is in less demand than Adams Morgan. The same argument could be made for the housing located south of CH Metro… very valuable property. The real estate taxes/transfer taxes realized from the development of those properties could yield sufficient revenue to provide affordable housing in other more affordable areas of the city. I guess the political ramifications negate the common sense approach.
so are you saying that only those that can afford it should live close to desireable areas or transit? let’s move the poor out? you need to either express your thoughts better or get a better handle on the situation of low income people.
That is the only fair and equitable way to do this. All housing should be at auction. Anything less benefits one group of people unfairly.
I had a friend who made hundreds of dollars per month renting out his grandmother’s rent controlled apartment illegally in Manhattan. Why is that fair to you?
I am a liberal, but there is only one fair and equitable housing solution- auction.
I don’t care how wrong Anonymous might be about people not working — if they’ve spent $20 million of our money on endless renovations to this building, and bigger work was done on nearby private condos for a lot less, then that’s a big deal and people should care about it.
I have nothing against the people in this building — who can blame them for taking advantage of a sweetheart deal, when all the banks are doing the same thing? That doesn’t mean the deal is a good idea for the rest of us.
You can certainly be in favor of helping people without believing you have a right to use other people’s money to do it — let alone to use a lot of it for renovations every ten years. DC can’t even afford decent snow removal, and here we are burning cash to enrich specific contractors and artificially depress the rental market.
exactly
will you read that sentence again! Anonymous does not state the people don’t hold jobs. sheesh people! Everyone here needs to go back to school because you’re dumb.
Yes “Neener” because you’re the bastian of intelligence on an anonymous blog…
hey, I’m right and they’re wrong, laughably wrong. You can’t deny that.
To those who siding with Jubilee:
Are you disputing the numbers? $20 million in taxpayer money spent since 1978?
That amounts to $21,500 per resident per year.
That is almost $700,000 per unit since 1978.
That sounds like a pretty damn bad deal for the taxpayers. Without even accounting for the vastly higher rents today (versus 1978), we could put up each of them in a luxury condo at market rates for that money.
Unless you dispute the figures, then I don’t see how you have a leg to stand on. I can’t believe that the cost of providing subsidized housing should be anywhere near $20K per person per year.
I think that the folks who live in the Sorrento would argue that living right on 18th Street with all the woo-hoo asshats late at night isn’t quite the prime real estate that many seem to make it out to be.
I just read the Jubillee web site. After the renovation, there will only be 23 units instead of 31. How does that make sense if the goal is providing housing to the most people possible?
I don’t suppose there is any chance that Jubilee is going to convert this place to condos and sell them after the renovation is done, is there? I can’t think of any other reason to dramatically reconfigure and renovate this place. There’s no way that going from 31 to 23 units will benefit them financially. Unless they plan to sell them.
I don’t have the details but they may be converting a one bedroom into a two ot three bedroom so families as opposed to single people can live in a decent environment instead of having 5 people share a two bedroom apartment. Again, not sure of the details but this is a constant problem with developers that promote their units as “low income” which means low income for one person only as opposed to a family
bingo
What is close? A few blocks to Metro or bus service… that’s basically the whole city, some areas more so than others. Is Adams’ Morgan desirable? I would say that is a matter of relativity. I don’t think you are comprehending my thoughts and I understand the situation of low income people, but I also understand the opportunities. I’m not suggesting moving them out, I’m suggesting moving them over to areas where land values are less, meaning the same money could be spent providing more units to more people. And yes, those more affordable areas still have access to transit.
“We stole this building !!! Yes we did.”
It seems a lot more than the building has been stolen over 30 years.
Wisconsin Senator WIlliam Proxmire used to give out annual Golden Fleece Awards back in the 1970’s and 1980’s.
After 30 years of prodigious spending, The Sorrento is certainly worthy.
We could have bought 23 very nice homes in the Forrest Hills neighborhood of Washington for the more than $20 million that has been spent on this property since 1978.
People simply have to earn things in order to have them well maintained; otherwise there’s no incentive to provide for oneself and one’s own; it’s just unsustainable in the long run, perpetuates more of the same, and simply not worth it.
Calling dirt bags on criticism is just absconding the obvious by people who have too much of a false sense of entitlement, too little self responsibility for themselves and their own, and their apologists and collectivist enablers.
Can the grammar-impaired Anonymous please provide a source (that can be corroborated) for the claim that $20 million in tax money has been provided to this building and/or Jublilee for this building? Because otherwise, you are just another Glenn Beck, making up some outrageous “fact” and then ranting about the criminality of that “fact” that does not, in reality, exist.
There’s a recorded first trust mortgage last year on this property for more than $22 million according to Rufus S. Lusk DC transfer sheets.
I don’t know about the Rufus Lusk transfer sheets, but Jubilee bought the property in 1978 and the property is
currently valued at roughly $5 million:
http://www.wdcep.com/pdf/pubs/dev.pdf
realtor.com says the tax assessment value of the property is roughly $2.6 million
A supposed $22 million mortgage on property valued at $5 million? Something tells me your source info is bad, either because you have the wrong address, or you read the source document wrong, or the “Rufus Lusk transfer sheet” is screwed up.
Here’s what’s happening with the renovation:
http://www.jubileehousing.org/properties/property.cfm?id=10
Yes it’s true, Jim;
The Lusk Reports are weekly reports of all transfers within the District of Columbia by lot, square, and street address.
Subscription is $880 a year and published since the 1970′s by Rufus S. Lusk and Sons/First American Core Logic.
The Sorrento lies on Lot 863 in Square 2560 otherwise known as 2233 18th Street, NW.
Only in the crazy public sector will you find a $22 million first trust mortgage on a property valued or assessed for so much less, but it’s true.
If more people made the time to look into these details and see the fleecing of our tax dollars, you might not be so surprised.
It’s funny, all of the NEW people who have decided to move into the Dstrict and trying to tell the old timers what to do. Go Yuppies, You people spend more on you dog parks than you do on human apartments. Thanks
Vincent Orange
Actually I’ve lived and worked just a block from The Sorrento for more than 40 years and have not only witnessed the rebuilding and subsequent renovations, but remember well the apartment house before 1978.
Thirty years and $22 million later, it hasn’t changed much.
ha ha, yes, we’re smarter, better educated, richer and better looking. We do rule.
but at least the old residents can look back at the crack wars with pride.
As my neighbors tell me all the time, “I’m so happy you moved in and fixed up the neighborhood so I can live in peace in my old age.”
I shoveled two front steps for free and dug out a neighbor’s car. The unemployed 35 year old down the street tried to charge these widows $20 per front steps. $20. a good neighbor does it for free.
the old time residents, they’re pretty much universally bad news, come on, we all know this because it’s true.
I mean, you know, trying to charge an 85 year old widow to shovel her steps? how scummy do you have to be?
Funny thing, Neener, the apologists and the enablers love to make all these silly rationalizations to justify housing as a gift and then maintained over the decades at public expense, generation after generation, without working to save for a down payment, keep good credit, lead an honest life of providing for themselves and their own like the rest of us. There’s no incentive.
Then when shootings and murders occur as they have one block from The Sorrento or the 2200 block of Champlain residents we’re told by our elected officials that they are victims as well and don’t associate or attract this criminal element to our neighborhood.
Yeah, right.
The profligate funding continues, and the so called social justice with it, because it makes them feel good to have help others with other people’s money.
When we point this out we’re dirt bags.
The decades pass. The faces of the elected change. The story remains the same and we have to live with their logic and what they leave behind.
Government exists to do what citizens cannot do for themselves. Lincoln taught us that.
What do our leaders teach us now ? It’s a mindset that blurs the increasing public sector from the diminishing private sector to the point that there’s no distinction between them.
I’m no libertarian, so I’m not particularly driven by what Lincoln said.
If you think the private sector is diminishing I have a bridge to sell you. In this city what percentage of union government jobs have been turned over to contractors? It’s a blurring, but one that has benefited the private sector greatly and I should know.
I believe, however, that the buck stops with housing. I know too many people who rented a rent controlled apartment from someone and then sublet it for a year or two for more than their own rent, making a profit on a rent controlled place that they themselves had no business renting from the original renter. Any housing assistance will be turned into a profit making enterprise.
Therefore end housing assistance as such and at best, assist people in finding and paying for market-priced rents. Anything else is forcing their children to live in poverty.
I hit rock bottom in 2000. I was in deep trouble financially. I was forced by circumstance to go to graduate school. these same circumstances could force the Sorrento tenants to get a master’s degree or PhD and their kids will be better for it. I’ve been there and the stress of failure is the world’s greatest inspiration.
Because, unlike the racists posting here, I do not doubt that these residents, putting their mind to it, couldn’t succeed in graduate school.
Thanks JIM,
GO METRO
Jim,
The Lusk Reports are weekly reports of all transfers within the District of Columbia by lot, square, and street address.
Subscription is $880 a year and published since the 1970′s by Rufus S. Lusk and Sons/First American Core Logic.
The Sorrento lies on Lot 863 in Square 2560 otherwise known as 2233 18th Street, NW.
Only in the crazy public sector will you find a $22 million first trust mortgage on a property valued or assessed for so much less, but it’s true.
If more people made the time to look into these details and see the fleecing of our tax dollars, you might not be so surprised as I am.
Jim:
The Lusk Reports are weekly reports of all transfers within the District of Columbia by lot, square, and street address.
Subscription is $880 a year and published since the 1970′s by Rufus S. Lusk and Sons/First American Core Logic.
The Sorrento lies on Lot 863 in Square 2560 otherwise known as 2233 18th Street, NW.
Only in the crazy public sector will you find a $22 million first trust mortgage on a property valued or assessed for so much less, but it’s true.
If more people made the time to look into these details and see the fleecing of our tax dollars, you might not be so surprised.
Financing for the renovations of the Jubilee properties (of which there are seven in Adams Morgan) is done in bundles…any financing reports for the Sorrento would also include financing for the Euclid Mews which is also being redone right now and is the last in a series of a three-phase renovation of all the properties.
Still pretty sure you aren’t reading that “transfer sheet” correctly. The property itself hasn’t transferred in 30 years, so unless the “transfer sheet” is showing a transfer of who holds the mortgage…
and BTW, who holds this alleged $22 million mortgage?
Jim,
You’ve passed being skeptical, and are now just cynical.
A mortgage is a transfer.
All transfers are listed, meaning all actual sales and all mortgages taken on all real property within the District of Columbia as they occur and reported on weekly.
If you bought your house in 1978 with a 30 year mortgage and paid it off in 2008, and refinanced it in 2009, the refinancing shows up on the report as a new encumbered mortgage even if there wasn’t a sale.
The District of Columbia is a Deed of Trust state or jurisdiction where holders of title to real property actually deed over their property to two trustees until the note is satisfied. Again, mortgages are transfers.
Then the prior writer’s explanation makes much more sense. If, as you claim, there is a recent “mortgage” of $22 million encumbering this property, the bundling of money for the renovation of seven Jubilee properties in the District would explain that figure.
http://dcmud.blogspot.com/search/label/Adams%20Morgan
http://www.fhlb-pgh.com/housing-and-community/programs/ahp_recipients_06.html
the second link indicates that for two Jubilee properties, including the Sorrento, the United Bank of Parkersburg, WV has loaned the money to Jubilee for the renovations.
how do we know the development corporation isn’t taking out a loan against this property for another development project?
its stupid to subsidize housing in the most expensive hoods and the folks on this blog whining about it are stupid. What about me? I make good money and have a graduate degree. I rented on Cap Hill for 10 years and when I wanted to buy I was priced out (and btw the rent control is another boon doggle gone wrong. I was making 65,000 in a rent controlled apt for 10 years). I got priced out of the hill so I ended up in crime central Columbia Heights. Its a choice I made. Why don’t poor people have to make the same choices? Public housing is based solely on the racist assumption that urban african americans will be poor now and for all future generations which is why there is no time limit on living in public housing. Rent control actually drives up housing for the vast majority of people. Subsidized housing does little to actually create long term stability and wealth building for low income families. I swear living in DC is turning me into a republican. And every day I get harassed by the thugs hanging outside Columbia Village and Trinity Towers I certainly don’t think they contribute much to the neigbhorhood. So yeah, if you are on the dole then you DON’T have a right to say where you live. You do not have a constitutional right to live in any neighborhood regardless of income. wtf you dumb ass liberals? this race to the bottom is killing this COuntry.
Dear what about me? :
And it’s a steep slope to the bottom and collectivist ruin. It’s not spread the wealth, but spread the misery. Government by ration with a collective life of scarcity and deprivation with not just housing and healthcare but all of life necessities handed out by committee ala Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela.
Urban liberals feel good helping other people in need and that’s good so long as they conduct personal individual acts of their genuine kindness, but when it’s instituted in policy and used with public treasury, the road paved with their good intentions is to a certain destiny and one of collective misery for all of us.
The productive and self sufficient like yourself as well as our culture and country in its third century of ascent finds itself at a plateau with diminshed individual choices (freedom) replaced by collectivist central planners who pretend to know better of the what, where, when, and why we should do with our own lives with their racist social engineering without license. The cliff is near.
Many these well intentioned urban liberals come from failed personal lives in the private sector seeking refuge in the comfortable public sector with old proven-to-be-wrong collectivist ideals that think government is the anwser to everything, that central planning government by ration and organizations can take the place of absent fathers when in the long run it only perpetuates the same generation after generation.
William Bradford and pilgrims tried collectivism at Plymouth Rock in the 1600’s and they starved, until they threw it out. Nearly 400 years later we still haven’t learned this hard lesson. The left can’t govern us, and that yes, Lincoln was right: government exists to do only what citizens cannot do for themselves.
Since Jubilee Housing acquired The Sorrento in 1978, and in the subsequent 30 plus years of Homerule in D.C., we don’t elect Republicans in DC and none ever here in Ward One.
As the decades pass, living and thinking like a Republican in the urban city can be lonely here in our nation’s capital. When we bring up the obvious we are disparaged and the message is lost by killing the messenger. It’s all sad really, but true.
what about me? Said
what about me, you have a lot in common with the Drug Dealers, they are so happy that the new demographics in the hood are attracting a higher lever of paying customers for weed, coke and meth. According to the dealer, these new WF buy weed regularly also pay their rent on time. The dealer owns a couple of rental property in CH. He said man …” I know a Nurse who spends about $475.00 a week with the resident manager of her building and the dealer has 19 regular paying customers. HE is so happy. They bring no voilence. Sometimes he also goes over to VA and bring back generic cigs Go White about me
SSM, you just made that up off the top of your head. You don’t know any dealers and you’re just fantasizing that’s what’s happening.
I happen to know one dealer quite well and one thing he never, under any circumstances would ever do, and I’ve seen him hit people and threaten to beat them up, the one thing no crew leader around here would ever do would be to sell to a white person.
One of the great things about Adams Morgan is the diversity of the neighborhood. Studies have proven again and again that the best functioning and most successful neighborhoods are ones that have a broad mix of social and ethnic classes.
Dear what about me? :
And it’s a steep slope to the bottom of collectivist ruin.
It’s not spread the wealth, but spread the misery. Government by ration with a collective life of scarcity and deprivation with not just housing and healthcare, but all of life’s necessities handed out by committee ala Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela.
Urban liberals feel good helping other people in need and that’s good so long as they conduct personal individual acts of their genuine kindness, but when it’s instituted in policy and used with public treasury, the road paved with their good intentions is to a certain destiny and one of collective misery for all of us.
The productive and self sufficient like yourself as well as our country and culture in its third century of ascent finds itself at a plateau with diminshed individual choices (freedom) replaced by collectivist central planners who pretend to know better of the what, where, when, and why of how we should lead our own lives with their racist social engineering without license.
The cliff is near.
Many of these well intentioned urban liberals come from failed personal lives in the private sector seeking refuge in the comfortable public sector with old proven-to-be-wrong collectivist ideals that think government is the anwser to everything, that central planning government by ration and organizations can take the place of absent fathers when in the long run it only perpetuates the same generation after generation.
William Bradford and the pilgrims tried collectivism at Plymouth Rock in the 1600’s and they starved, until they threw it out. Nearly 400 years later we still haven’t learned this hard lesson. The left can’t govern us, and that yes, Lincoln was right: government exists to do only what citizens cannot do for themselves.
Since Jubilee Housing acquired The Sorrento in 1978, and in the subsequent 30 plus years of Homerule in D.C., we don’t elect Republicans in DC and none ever here in Ward One.
As the decades pass, living and thinking like a Republican in the city can be lonely here in our nation’s capital. When we bring up the obvious we are disparaged and the message is lost by killing the messenger. It’s all sad really, but true.
if everyone could get into college, a college degree would worth what a high school diploma is. in a capitalist society, scarcity adds value. assuming race has anything to do with it is inherently racist, what even made you think of race? there aren’t enough seats in today’s colleges to house EVERY American aged 18-21, even if somehow magically every kid got a perfect SAT score tomorrow. this is beyond race and goes into how we structure our economy so the kids who don’t go to college have a living wage alternative (teaching more trades at community colleges might be a start)
my reply appears waaaaay below the person to which i was responding and now makes no sense out of context. LOL.
Greetings from Jubilee Housing. We have read this discussion with considerable interest. Just a quick response: Jubilee Housing is a nonprofit organization providing affordable housing and other life opportunities to more than 700 people in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C. The organization began in 1973 when a handful of Church of the Saviour members mortgaged their own homes to buy two apartment houses, and soon after, the Sorrento. They worked nights and weekends to bring the buildings up to code for the benefit of residents, securing one small pocket of affordable housing in Adams Morgan. From that beginning, Jubilee Housing has grown to include seven buildings and an array of services for economically disadvantaged residents.
In the last five years Jubilee has completed five similar properties in the neighborhood, totaling 145 apartments, three after-school centers for children and youth grades K-12, and a daycare center for newborns, infants and toddlers. While the work is costly to restore the 80+ year old properties to modern condition, two-thirds of the total funding comes in the form of private equity, grants and other contributions. The City financing is important to the success of the properties, but is no greater than the per unit investment in many of the high end condominium projects sited by others bloggers in this string of comments.
Residents of Jubilee properties are proud members of the Adams Morgan community and, like everyone else in this conversation, contribute to the City’s well being.
For the record, the seven properties each had moderate rehabilitation when originally acquired by Jubilee, but this series of renovations is the first life cycle upgrade in their history. And the sign on the original posting is for Ellis Dale, the general contractor performing the renovation work.