Meanwhile, the percentage of mortgages for non-Black homebuyers in these communities is increasing and housing prices continue to climb.

D.C. is in part hoping to stem the exodus of 5,000 Black homeowners between 2010 and 2020.

D.C.’s Single Family Residential Rehabilitation Program is designed to keep low-income residents in their houses. But some homeowners watch damages get worse. Others die waiting for fixes.

Decades of discriminatory housing policy helped create a racial homeownership gap in the nation’s capital.