The former owner and manager of two apartment complexes in Southeast D.C. — Forest Ridge and The Vistas — will pay a total of $3.5 million dollars to settle a lawsuit over poor conditions and mismanagement of the properties.

Current and former tenants of the 398 apartments in the complexes will receive $1.9 million in restitution payments as part of the settlement. The rest will go to nonprofits and the D.C. government.

The lawsuit, brought by D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine in 2018, alleged that landlord Joseph Kisha and his companies let the properties deteriorate and forced hundreds of tenants to deal with vermin infestations, water damage, mold, poor safety and security systems and persistent violence.

In addition to the payment to residents, Kisha and his companies will be required to pay $1 million dollars to the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) to support its violence reduction programs and future litigation expenses. The settlement also requires a $100,000 payment to Horton’s Kids, a nonprofit child development center that operates out of The Vistas, and a $150,000 dollar payment to D.C. Central Kitchen.

According to the 2018 complaint from Racine’s office, the two apartment complexes were the location of “multiple homicides, the execution of search warrants, and seizures of drugs, drug paraphernalia, firearms, and related materials.” In addition to crime, residents lived with problems like sewage leaks, inadequate heating, mold contamination, rats and bedbugs, all while the management company continued to demand they pay their full rents.

And tenants at the federally subsidized apartment complexes have said that poor conditions persisted even after Racine filed his lawsuit against their landlord and began monitoring the property more closely. In December of 2019, four tenants went on rent strike to protest the conditions. Cereta Jackson, a resident of The Vistas who participated in the strike, told the Washington City Paper that the apartment’s maintenance office was unresponsive to her requests.

“[These] people need to stop being in office, being in management, and people need to stop buying real estate,” Jackson told City Paper. “When they’re supposed to own something, they need to take care of it, they need to treat people like human beings.”

Vista Ridge Limited Partnership, Kisha’s company and the owner of the buildings, declared bankruptcy in March of 2019. (The bankruptcy was declared before the OAG was able to request a “receiver,” which would have transferred management of the properties to a third party.) In March of this year, the apartment complexes were sold out of bankruptcy to a new company which has said it will rehabilitate them. The apartment buildings are now called The Skyline Apartments, according to Bisnow.

In addition to the settlement with Kisha and his companies, Racine’s office also announced a settlement with the owners of a 34-unit apartment building in Ward 4 on Wednesday. Racine’s office had previously sued the building’s owners and manager, 220 Hamilton Street LLC, Vivienne Awasum, and Vision Realty Management LLC, alleging that they ignored repeated housing code violations for almost two years. (The building, the Park View Apartments, has had a long history of bad landlords and deplorable conditions for residents.)

Under the settlement, the companies will have to renovate the property at 220 Hamilton Street Northwest, provide proof of compliance with D.C. housing laws before renting any more residential properties in D.C., implement a D.C. Housing Code training program for their employees, and pay the District $50,000 dollars for their housing code violations.

“These settlements will provide much-needed relief for hundreds of renters, many of whom were forced to live in fear for their physical safety and health for far too long,” Racine said. “Our office will enforce the District’s housing laws to ensure landlords follow the law and protect tenants, especially our most vulnerable residents.”

Racine has said his office takes housing code violations seriously; Under his tenure, the OAG has repeatedly gone after bad landlords. The office added four additional full-time attorneys to take on housing and community justice work, DCist reported in 2018.

In addition to the housing-related settlements, the OAG announced a settlement on Wednesday with the owners of Good Hope Laundromat in Anacostia. Racine’s office sued the owners in April, alleging that they had failed to address drug-related activity on the property that has led to violence. As part of the settlement, the owner will have to install exterior lighting and security cameras, hire security guards, and bar people who have engaged in criminal activity from the property. The owner will also have to pay a $6,000 dollar fine to the city — and if it fails to comply with the terms of the settlement, it could be required to pay the city an additional $18,000 dollars.