From reporter Steve Thompson:

The apartment is a time capsule. In the fridge, still plugged in and running, sits a mostly empty package of Oscar Mayer deli meat dated May 2019. The freezer holds a 16-pound turkey — best if used by June 29, 2019.

On the living room floor lies a composition book filled by a girl who lived in Unit #32. Her name means princess, the girl wrote, and her favorite person is her baby sister.

In the three years since, D.C. Housing Authority officials moved no one else in, as more than 20,000 people languished on a frozen waiting list for public housing.

It’s among the more than one in four of D.C.’s roughly 8,000 public housing units that sit vacant, at an average length of about two years, agency records reveal. Nationwide, public housing occupancy rates average 95 percent. DCHA’s is the lowest it has ever experienced, even as the District’s long-running affordable housing crisis intensifies and more people find themselves priced out of decent homes.

The occupancy decline underscores entrenched troubles at the agency tasked with housing some of the District’s poorest residents. The city’s largest landlord, the authority serves about 30,000 households through housing vouchers and mixed-finance and traditional public housing properties.

The vacancies cost more than $10 million annually in forgone rent and federal subsidies, according to a federal housing department estimate, and they drag down communities the authority is supposed to serve. Their boarded-up doors and windows are often pried loose and attract crime, and residents say the trash left behind fuels roach and rodent infestations.

Brenda Donald, who has been director for about 16 months, has blamed the worsening vacancies on her predecessor while pledging to make it her top priority. “I’ve run big, complex systems, and they don’t get broken overnight, and you can’t fix them overnight,” Donald said in a recent interview.

But her own goals have not been met. In March, as the occupancy rate stood at 79 percent, Donald pledged to raise it 10 percentage points by the end of September. Instead, it has fallen below 74 percent.

That’s the lowest of any large housing authority in the country, according to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that slammed DCHA for poor management. The report demands the agency significantly improve occupancy and other issues or risk defaulting on its agreement with the federal government.

Among its findings: dangerous conditions, including lead-paint hazards; out-of-code plumbing; water damage and mold; emergency work orders going unaddressed at night due to high crime; and prospective tenants declining units because they fear for their safety.

In a building near Unit #32, intruders ripped away the plywood sealing a vacant unit and kicked in the door. There’s a small bed inside, and clothes are strewn about. More than a dozen used condoms have been tossed into the once-white bathtub.

“I have reported this door being open, but they’re not doing anything about it,” said Nakia Blackmone, whose apartment is steps away from the vacant unit. “People are just coming in and out, and in and out, and I don’t feel safe where I live.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/19/dc-public-housing-vacancy-spirals/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com