Details about this story

• Source: Washington Post
• Date: March 09, 2008
• URL: Read the story
• Bylines: Debbie Cenziper , Sarah Cohen
• Topics: Local Government , Real Estate
• Data Types: Local Data , Mapping
• Description/Excerpt: Landlords determined to cash in on a lucrative real estate market pushed thousands of tenants out of apartments across the District in recent years and then reaped more than $328 million by converting the buildings into condominiums. Dozens of landlords refused to make repairs, forcing families to live in filth -- at times without heat, hot water or electricity. Other landlords delivered urgent letters or mass notices demanding that tenants leave. In the past four years, landlords emptied more than 200 buildings from Columbia Heights to Southeast, most of them rent-controlled, thwarting the intent of one of the nation's toughest tenant rights laws with the approval of the city government, a Washington Post investigation found.
• Methodology: See explainer
• Database or Graphic: Go to site (com/wp-srv/metro/forcedout/map/?sid=ST2008030803137)