When Adrian Washington announced last month that he was shutting down his prolific D.C. affordable housing development firm, the news was a shock to many and left the thousands of residents in Neighborhood Development Co.’s buildings in limbo.
It was also a warning.
NDC’s collapse wasn’t an isolated incident. The owners of tens of thousands of income-restricted apartments are at risk of losing their properties, jeopardizing the future of affordable housing in the nation’s capital.
D.C. housing owners are facing foreclosures, and more could go out of business as rental income doesn’t cover their costs.
“The danger is what Adrian Washington faced, that we’re going to collapse. The whole industry could collapse,” said CIH Properties Chairman Michael Huke, whose firm owns 2,700 units in D.C., most of them in Wards 7 and 8. “My thought is if this is not solved by Dec. 31, there may be no turning this around.”
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