Gentrification 101: The D.C. Chronicles

Seventy-four year-old veteran Wilson Gregory had paid off the mortgage on his Southeast D.C. home many years ago. Yet while he realized a tripling of the value of his single-family brick structure, the market in Washington real estate was booming, even in his community, which was for years avoided by all but long-term residents. His property value quadrupled, while his fixed income only inched upwards every few years. Eventually, he fell behind in his property taxes.
His family rallied around him, paying off the few hundred dollars he owed the city. But lawyers for an enterprising couple who had their eyes set on acquiring Wilson's home invoked measures which found the old vet responsible for thousands of dollars in legal fees the couple had assumed in pursuit of his home. With little more assistance forthcoming, Wilson, and quite a few others in his community, joined a caravan of native Washingtonians priced out, or forced out, of the city...