D.C. housed the homeless in upscale apartments. It hasn't gone as planned.

[TexasTowelie]

The SWAT team, the overdose, the complaints of pot smoke in the air and feces in the stairwell — it would be hard to pinpoint a moment when things took a turn for the worse at Sedgwick Gardens, a stately apartment building in Northwest Washington.

But the Art Deco complex, which overlooks Rock Creek Park and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, is today the troubled locus of a debate on housing policy in a city struggling with the twin crises of homelessness and gentrification.

Located in affluent Cleveland Park and designed by Mihran Mesrobian — the prewar architect behind such Washington landmarks as the Hay-Adams Hotel — Sedgwick Gardens was once out of reach for low-income District residents.

That changed two years ago, when D.C. housing officials dramatically increased the value of rental subsidies. The goal was to give tenants who had previously clustered in impoverished, high-crime areas east of the Anacostia River a shot at living in more desirable neighborhoods.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-housed-the-homeless-in-upscale-apartments-it-hasnt-gone-as-planned/2019/04/16/60c8ab9c-5648-11e9-8ef3-fbd41a2ce4d5_story.html?utm_term=.d2f7c4660edb

[Hortensis]

1. "Longtime Sedgwick Gardens resident Jane Hardin said many of the tenants

with vouchers are good neighbors. But she worries about a woman down the hall who screams to herself at odd hours."

It's encouraging that this could work for many people, at least. Sadly, living standards for residents of any building in any neighborhood are going to plummet if dysfunctional people who cause problems are housed there. Not just a problem for the "Sedgewick Gardens" socioecon level.