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Forced OUT!
An Investigation Into Casualties of the District's Real Estate Boom
Building on Broken Promises
D.C. Developer's Projects Marred by Unchecked Spending and Dubious Deals
The Washington Post is reporting on the partnership that began at a crumbling apartment complex on a hillside south of the Capitol when longtime D.C. Council member H.R. Crawford told tenants, "I can show you how you can be a homeowner."
Within months, he struck a deal to raze the rental complex and build dozens of affordable townhouses with $25 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, promising tenants the rare chance to buy into the new community. The rise of Walter E. Washington Estates, completed in 2003, brought growth and hope to one of the city's most blighted neighborhoods and forged Crawford's reputation as a fierce and successful advocate for affordable housing.
But the project hailed as a turning point in the District was tainted by unchecked spending and deals that benefited Crawford and his partners while leaving hundreds of tenants with little chance of returning to the rebuilt community, The Washington Post has found. The city has since awarded more than $8 million for four other Crawford projects and, after he was joined by larger partners, tens of millions more. None of the developments has been completed.
Crawford denies spending government money improperly and said he has worked for years to revive distressed neighborhoods.
"Have I done everything right? Probably not," he said. "But I have done the best I could managing some of the toughest developments in lower-income communities, the work that very few wanted to do."
At Walter E. Washington Estates, records show, Crawford used hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund his own property management firm even after paying his company more than $3 million in developer's fees, a practice developers and HUD officials say amounts to double-billing. He doled out contracts to consultants with ties to the government, including a former HUD administrator who had supported the project. Although he had agreed to return some of the proceeds from the home sales to HUD, he under-reported that income in documents to the agency and paid nothing back.
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