Still Slumming

"About a decade ago, the U.S. Attorney's Office (USAO) for the District of Columbia took aim at what law-enforcement officials call "nuisance properties" -- crack houses or boarded-up buildings that attract crime. Ever since, it has teamed up with D.C. agencies—the police department and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, for starters—to oust the tenants/squatters who have made such properties neighborhood eyesores. The USAO now feels sufficiently confident in the program to post a list of "Nuisance Property Success Stories" on its Web site, an inventory that now features 28 properties. The distinction comes with a vague blurb describing what the nuisance was, how the USAO got rid of it, and how much better off the neighborhood is now. Interviews with the actual people involved—the tenants, the addicts, the cops, the landlords—reveal that there is much more to the stories. Or sometimes much less."