By Caroline Fleming

The Post continues to follow the story of Congress Heights residents pushing to remediate their unsafe housing conditions. The DC Attorney General’s office has stepped in to sue the landlords of four buildings in the Ward 8 neighborhood, where low-income residents have long complained of housing problems ranging from rats to mold to lack of heat and hot water.

The DC Attorney General has deemed the residences “uninhabitable by tenants,” setting the stage for a lawsuit against the buildings’ managers, who the residents claim have refused to make repairs in an attempt to force occupants out and begin redevelopment of the property. Although denying the charges, the landlords earlier confirmed that they were no longer making any capital improvements to the apartments in light of the anticipated redevelopment. The suit seeks to place the buildings in receivership, which would bring in a third party to manage the property, and to require the current landlords to foot the bill for all needed repairs.

We are proud of the work that our friends at Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless are doing to support the Congress Heights residents, and commend the efforts that DC Attorney General Karl Racine is making to ensure that landlords fulfill their obligations to provide safe, well-maintained housing for the tenants who live in their buildings.