If you’ve ever walked down Spring Road NW between 13th and 10th, you’ve seen the old Washington Hebrew Home. I wrote about the home before, it opened in 1925 as a home for elderly Jewish people, expanded in 1935, then was sold to the city in 1968. The city used it as housing for homeless and poor people, then stopped using it around 2008. It’s been abandoned ever since.
But now, something is happening. Park View DC reports that the plan is for the DC Housing Authority to renovate the building as 70 to 80 units of affordable housing, affordable defined as 60% of the area medium income, which would mean less than about $68,000 a year.
The plan is still early, and there will be community meetings and hearings about, but they’re hoping to start this year and be finished by 2016 or 2017.
Sounds like a good plan to me — more affordable housing for folks, and reusing a nice old building that is unfortunately abandoned.
