Unoccupied House On Your Block?

• October 20th 2011

by Shilpi Paul

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Unoccupied, boarded-up homes can be worrying eyesores for city residents hoping to spruce up their neighborhood. While this is nothing new in DC, a Ward 1 resident recently became curious about a boarded-up row house at 1452 Euclid Street NW, as he was eager to see it rehabbed and add value to the community. He started sleuthing in the hopes of pushing the property into the hands of someone that would be able to rehabilitate it.

Using the city’s property assessment database, the resident found that the property is owned by the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA). Failing to find the home on the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) vacant property map, he wrote to both DCHA and the DC government to get answers about what will become of the house.

In an effort to help, UrbanTurf reached out to DCHA and was told that the home will eventually be renovated and then likely rented to lower-income DC residents. However, DCHA was unable to provide a timeline on when this will happen. The concerned resident also received a response from the head of DCHA, who promised a more comprehensive status update soon.

The row house could be one of DCHA’s “scattered site” houses, which are intended for public housing. The “scattered site” model for public housing, wherein the government maintains properties throughout various neighborhoods in the city, is an alternative to the usual concentrated public housing system. According to a post from New Columbia Heights earlier this year, DCHA received a sizable grant from HUD to gut and renovate 26 of these homes.

While the resident was left only slightly sated, UrbanTurf will update this post if and when he hears back with a more comprehensive answer.

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/unoccupied_house_on_your_block/4395.