DC Sues 23 Landlords

Washington, DCTwenty-three landlords are being sued by the District Government because these individuals have long histories of housing law violations and providing less than satisfactory living conditions to tenants that are considered vulnerable, according to DC officials on April 4.

The District plans to ask the DC Superior Court to appoint what are called receivers to collect rent from those landlords who own the neglected properties and use the collected money to repair the issues that are violating the housing-code. Should the money that is collected not be enough to cover the cost of the repairs, then the District will request that the court orders the landlord to do the repairs on their own. If the landlord fails to make the repairs, they can face fines and even prison time.

Mayor Adrian Fenty said that it is immoral to allow human beings to live in such conditions and that is why it is against the law. The 23 landlords named in the suit are the worst of the worst according to Fenty and their violations includes 470 apartment units in 70 buildings. Fenty also says that more landlords will be added to the lawsuit later on.

Councilman Jim Graham says that these landlords were making a quick buck off of human misery and believes that by putting them in handcuffs means that more attention will be brought to the problem.

As for utilizing receivers to collect money off of the landlords to make repairs to the neglected properties, Interim Attorney General Peter Nickles came up with the idea several weeks ago. He knew something had to be done after a plumbing issue at one building caused up to 40 people to suddenly become homeless and a five-alarm displaced hundreds of people in another building.

The problem has been ongoing for decades and the penalties that the city imposed on landlords were not harsh enough. As a result, many rogue landlords came about and only five or six of these landlords have been sued in the last five or six years. Nickles says that this has resulted in landlords nickel and diming the city. Now the city is doing something by naming the landlords and the neglected properties and Nickles hopes that this will get the message across to those who have properties that are approaching violation status.

By Ginger Gillenwater