As housing prices soar, Takoma Park tenants seek new solutions

Wilbur King III lives in a two bedroom apartment at The Leeland in Takoma Park, paying around $1,000 a month for the past 11 years to be near parks, a bakery and a Metro ride away from his job at the Library of Congress.

When his landlord put up the building for sale in June 2021, King found his housing situation in jeopardy. The 65-year-old was concerned a new owner would raise the rent or convert the complex into condominiums that would push him and other tenants out.

King doesn’t want to lose the familiarity and support of his neighbors — which has felt even more important since recovering from a stroke last fall.

“It’s my favorite neighborhood in this whole area. I don’t want to have to leave, but at the same time, Montgomery County is getting less and less affordable,” King said.

It’s expensive to live in Montgomery County. The money required to afford a home in the region has surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving residents, particularly renters and working class households, susceptible to displacement, housing experts say.The crisis has mobilized tenants at The Leeland to seek unconventional legal tools that could save their affordable housing.

Priced out

A typical home in the Washington region has a value of $555,465, according to a report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. The estimated income needed to afford such a mortgage is over $150,000, the report said.

Such high costs keep many out of securing homeownership, such as children’s theater artist Tia Shearer Bassett, who lives next door to King with her husband Matt Bassett and nine-year-old son Charlie.

When The Leeland went on the market, the family searched for homes within their price range in places as far as Olney.Compared to the amenities and community they have in Takoma Park, moving away became unreasonable, Shearer Bassett said. She and her husband work in Washington, DC and Northern Virginia, while their child attends school down the street from their apartment, at Piney Branch Elementary.

“I feel physically pushed away from where the action is, and I don’t want that,” Shearer Bassett said.

Renting in the area has also grown more expensive. From 2020 to 2021, typical rents in the Washington region shot up almost 12%, also documented by the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

But, many of The Leeland tenants point to Takoma Park’s rent stabilization law as what has allowed them to stay, even throughout the pandemic. The law prevents landlords of multifamily properties from raising rent over a designated threshold, according to the city’s housing department website.

Now facing an uncertain future, the residents at 112 Lee Ave. turned to another unique municipal tool: the tenant opportunity to purchase law, which allows them the possibility to buy their building together through a tenant association.

It’s a big feat to take on for a group of 30-some tenants — on real estate sites, the 15-unit building is listed at almost $2 million. But through their tight-knit community and municipal support, The Leeland residents are leveraging collective power.

“When [the tenant association officers] went forward with researching and talking to people about what it would look like, it actually started to feel more and more plausible that we could own it,” Shearer Bassett said.

Seeking help

The tenant opportunity to purchase law makes homeownership more accessible in Takoma Park, according to the city’s municipal code.

The city has been supportive of The Leeland tenants’ mobilization to purchase. The housing department plans to apply for state funding to assist in repairs after the building’s acquisition, as well as develop a support fund for future tenant purchase cases, according to municipal documents. The city council approved both measures on July 6.

Ward 4 Takoma Park Councilmember Terry Seamens sees The Leeland as an example that could advance the city’s policies on affordable housing, particularly with setting up paths to homeownership.

“When this particular project came up, it was ideally suited to addressing [these] goals, so that’s why the council was supportive of it,” Seamens said.

‘Different models’

For The Leeland tenants, homeownership is not a path to wealth. Instead, they see it as a way to guarantee they can all stay in place.

If the purchase is successful, the Leeland Tenant Association hopes to turn their building into a limited equity cooperative, where all of the tenants would own a share of the building and pay a percentage of their income towards the mortgage, said President Sasha Olinick. Olinick has lived at 112 Lee Ave. for 10 years.

A cooperative would ensure that everyone who already lives at The Leeland — from young families to retirees — would not be forced to leave from rising costs, he added.

“We’ve agreed to this system of financing it in such a way that everyone’s covering everybody else’s back,” Olinick said.

The cooperative model also creates room for collective decision making. After acquisition, the tenants hope to modernize the building by upgrading the windows, adding solar panels to the roof and strengthening the security of the front door.

The purchasing contract with the landlord initially ended in July, but Olinick and other tenants remain hopeful. They’re currently in negotiations with the county, state and nonprofits to set up loans and grants that will help them buy the complex.

If they end up keeping the building, Olinick wants The Leeland to become a model in collective ownership that other tenants in the area could follow.

“I hope that as we look at the situation that we’re in as a country and say, we have to look for different models,” Olinick said. “The only way we’re going to solve the problem of a lack of affordable housing is by thinking of things outside of the box.”