OLIVE BRANCH COMMUNITY   home

 

 

LATINO CIVIL RIGHTS FACT SHEETS

Fact Sheet:

Rental Housing

 

  1. The total supply of housing units in the District has decreased by over 4% over the last decade.

 

  1. As to rental units specifically, between 1994 and 1999, the rental vacancy rate fell from over 10% to less than 1%.

 

  1. The neighborhoods currently undergoing the most rapid gentrification in Washington, DC are all located in Ward 1, which includes Adams Morgan, Cardoza/Shaw, Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights. Of all Latinos living in the District, almost one-half (46.3%) of the population is concentrated in Ward 1.

 

  1. Between 1991 and 1996, annual housing sales in the Columbia Heights area increased from 136 to 235.

 

  1. 10,000 federally subsidized low-income apartments in the Columbia Heights neighborhood are set to expire by 2005 under the current Section 8 contracts.

 

  1. Average prices for single-family homes in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood have skyrocketed to an average of $360,000 for the smallest homes in the neighborhood and $560,000 for the largest homes.

 

  1. Housing prices in the Cardoza-Shaw neighborhood have jumped as well. For example, houses at 9th and O Streets that were selling for $80,000 in 1996 increase 87% in market value by 1999.

 

  1. The inspection staff of the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs dwindled from 161 in 1991 to 28 in April 2000. In 2000, DCRA conducted 38,000 inspections but 12,000 additional complaints of substandard housing went uninvestigated.

 

  1. Blacks and Latinos face discrimination more than 42% of the time when they attempt to rent apartments in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. In Washington, DC, Latinos are more likely to be discriminated against than their white or black neighbors. Latinos and African-Americans seeking rental insurance in the Washington, DC metropolitan area encounter discrimination 45% of the time in their interactions with insurance providers.

 

  1. From 1991 to 1997, the number of affordable rental units decreased by 37,200 units in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.

 

  1. In the District, families may wait up to five years for public housing and up to eight years for Section 8 subsidies.

 

  1. Between 1998 and 1999, the District had nearly 20,000 families on the waiting list for Section 8 assistance, a 29% increase over the prior year.

 

  1. The percentage of Latinos on the DC Housing Authority waiting list for public housing declined from 1991 to 1998 (from 1.7% to 0.9%) despite the fact that the need for low-income housing for Latinos has increased during the 1990s.

 

  1. In 2001, although Latinos made up at least 8% of DC’s population, they held only 1.3% of Section 8 vouchers and 1.2% of Section 8 project-based units.

 

  1. In heavily Latino-occupied Ward 1 of the District, Latinos occupied only 2.2% of the public housing units and held 17% of the Section 8 vouchers allotted in this area of the city.

 Back to top