In a city where property values have risen more than 14 percent over the last year, various District officials and activists have expressed concern over the availability of affordable housing. The D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute noted in a recent report that the shortage of affordable housing widened from 1990 to 2003 due to a 90 percent cut in funding for affordable housing over the same years, thus leading to an increase of the percentage of District residents with unaffordable housing burdens.

Hoping to help address the problem, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recently announced the issuance of $77.8 million in bonds to renovate the city’s public housing. According to the D.C. Housing Authority, the bonds will benefit 38 of the agency’s 41 properties, encompassing 6,900 individual units. The bonds compliment a similar $20 million grant by the HUD last June for the revitalization of the Eastgate Gardens community, a 230-unit affordable housing development in Ward 7.

The image above, taken from a University of Virginia website discussing public housing in Anacostia, is of a 1960s-era apartment public housing development, now abandoned.