“We fought for this housing, for our community:” Longtime Residents Organize and Build Ownership in Columbia Heights
Residents at Washington, D.C.’s La Unión Buena Vista are deeply rooted in their community, but it is a struggle to retain those roots in a neighborhood like Columbia Heights, where decades of gentrification have displaced many Black, Hispanic, and low-income households. LISC provided financing for the tenant purchase of the 34-unit apartment complex, as well as for immediate, critical repairs.
Residents at Washington, D.C.’s La Unión Buena Vista are deeply rooted in their community, but it is a struggle to retain those roots in a neighborhood like Columbia Heights, where decades of gentrification have displaced many Black, Hispanic, and low-income households. In recent years, the median income for the area has jumped 66 percent, and the purchase price of homes has more than doubled.
Those hikes proved to be especially difficult as owners let the building unravel, leaving few affordable alternatives for long-time residents, some of whom have been living at La Union Buena Vista since the 1970s. For years, they requested repairs to their units; their landlord consistently ignored them. But instead of acquiescing, they organized. Residents banded together to form a tenant’s association and start a rent strike in May 2020 in protest of dangerous conditions: roaches, holes in the walls, and persistently broken refrigerators.
In fact, when LISC DC staff visited, the site the owner was painting the steps while leaving a tenant without a working refrigerator, more concerned with appearances than tenant dignity.
After enduring years of inadequate conditions and bare minimum responses from the owner, the tenant’s association voted unanimously to purchase their building through the District’s Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA). Working with nonprofit organizers and attorneys, tenants made the decision to match a sales contract, a feat that involved resisting temptation from outside buyers who offered $50,000 per household to clear out and make way for gentrification. The tenants remained in place, and steadfast.
With support from DC’s Department of Housing and Community Development Preservation Fund, LISC provided financing for the tenant purchase of the 34-unit apartment complex, as well as for immediate, critical repairs. Ultimately, the new La Union Buena Vista Cooperative will seek additional funding from the D.C Housing Production Trust Fund to finance a larger-scale gut rehabilitation of the building and update aging systems.
“It took a long, coordinated fight for the residents of La Unión Buena Vista to reach this victory,” says Ramon Jacobson, executive director of LISC DC. “It’s powerful to see what happens when tenants come together, and I hope it inspires others to resist, to respond, and to take charge when facing displacement."
No matter how much housing prices continue to escalate, the cooperative will operate the property as permanently restricted affordable housing, where rents are matched to income so that no one is unduly burdened. “We fought for this housing, for our community,” Miranda declared, adding, “And now that it will be owned and operated by residents, it will be for a long time.”