The D.C. Attorney General announced Thursday that the owners of Atlantic Terrace and Southern Hills apartments must pay $2 million in penalties and restitution.
But tenants and the OAG said the neglect of the Southern Hills complex worsened as development plans got underway.“What we hope to get across is just because someone is an affordable housing provider doesn’t mean they get to defer maintenance,” said Argie Weatherington, an assistant attorney general with OAG. “You have to keep the property in code compliance conditions for the entire time tenants are living there.
Danitra, 36, who has lived in complex for 13 years and asked to only be identified by her first name out of concern for her living situation, said the mice infestation in her building had gotten so bad that she adopted a cat to help keepout of her unit. She’s seen her own apartment deteriorate over the years with bathroom-flooding leaks, black mold, a carpet that has been breaking down and causing her breathing problems.
“Far too many D.C. residents are living in unstable, substandard, unlawful conditions,” D.C. Attorney General Brian L. Schwalb said in a statement Thursday. And the right to live in safe and healthy homes, he continued, “is especially critical as affordable housing in the District becomes increasingly scarce.”— sit just east of Oxon Run Park in the Washington Highlands neighborhood and are under contracts from the U.S.
In 2021, HUD inspected Southern Hills Apartments and found nearly 600 housing code violations at the property, including pest and rodent infestations, broken doors and windows, leaks, mold, peeling lead-based paint and fire alarms that don’t work. The federal agency gave the complex a failing score of 26 out of 100.
Atlantic Terrace, which was renovated in 2018, according to Cafasso, also failed its 2021 HUD inspection, receiving a score of 50 out of 100 after the agency projected that the complex had more than 400 housing violations in need of remediation.
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