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. agenciesâ€"the police department and the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, for startersâ€"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 involvedâ€"the tenants, the addicts, the cops, the landlordsâ€"reveal that there is much more to the stories. Or sometimes much less."