For Ward 7 resident Gail Perkins, every moment spent repairing her childhood home serves as a reminder about the hurdles ahead for District homeowners, especially those who become landlords.
Last year, on the morning of Valentine’s Day, D.C. police officers serving a warrant for animal cruelty attempted to enter Perkins’ home on Hanna Place in Southeast. What followed was an hours-long standoff with a man by the name of Shephan Claude Rattigan who barricaded himself in Perkins’ home and shot three officers.
Once authorities apprehended Rattigan, the one-time significant other of a woman who moved out of the house with months of unpaid rent, they recovered 31 dogs and weapons. Perkins, meanwhile, was left with what she described as a house severely doused in dog urine and feces and damaged by MPD.
“There were 20 bullet holes when he shot out of this property,” Perkins said. “The house was ransacked, stuff was everywhere. He had dog cages upstairs, downstairs in the basement. It was a full basement, a full bathroom. He did so much damage to the property in one year.”
Perkins said she has yet to recoup her losses, citing what documentation obtained by The Informer shows as her unsuccessful attempt to secure a crime victim compensation grant from D.C. Superior Court. She’s since set her sights on Service First Property Management— the company she hired to facilitate the rental process— telling The Informer that the business falsified the lease owner’s income verification documents, discouraged her from visiting the property, and downplayed the threat that Rattigan posed.
In a statement, an attorney representing Service First Property Management said the tenant in question met the qualifications to rent the property on Hanna Place. The attorney also noted that Service First severed ties with Perkins eight months before the early morning police standoff.
As she becomes settled in her role as an advisory neighborhood commissioner, Perkins also questions the preventative measures that could’ve been taken, especially as it relates to law enforcement.
“When this incident happened, [neighbors] were appalled that the police were coming to them, knocking on the door, asking them questions,” Perkins told The Informer. “They were saying, ‘Where y’all been when we needed y’all?’”
Earlier this year, as she prepared to take an oath of office to represent Single-Member District 7E03, Perkins was still repairing her childhood home.
In the 1950s, her parents purchased the home that would later be passed on to her after the death of her mother in 2006. During the pandemic, Perkins’ childhood home became a distribution center for food and toiletries. As she recounted, when she and her husband decided to become landlords in 2022, Perkins embraced the opportunity to help residents, especially those with children, who are seeking spacious accommodations.
“The reason why I was doing so much advocacy for this community [is] because there’s a lot of disparities,” Perkins said. “There’s a lot of neglect. It’s almost like they don’t see us. Guys are out on the street. Do you think those guys really want to be on the street? Do you think they really want to rob? Maybe some of them do, but a lot of them don’t [and] they’re dealing the cards that have been handed over to them.”
Perkins, however, has since questioned whether she’s able to accomplish that goal in an historically underserved jurisdiction.
“At first, I was saying it was a faulty system, it’s broken, it’s shattered,” Perkins told The Informer. “But now my language has changed. Is the system really set up to help me or is it set up for me to fail?”
Ward 7 Housing Problems and D.C. Mayor Bowser’s Economic Plan
In the months since the violent standoff at Hanna Place in Southeast, landlords, tenants, and elected officials across the District have weighed in on the housing dilemma that, for many, hints at larger post-pandemic economic forces.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D), responding to landlords concerned about delinquent tenants, introduced legislation earlier this year to reinstate pre-pandemic eviction measures. However, tenants and advocates are citing economic strife and poor living conditions as factors deserving of attention in the conversation about non-rent payment.
Attorney General Brian Schwalb recently sued Mikhail Phillips, RLP Investment Group, LLC, and Vision Realty Management LLC, citing more than 30 notices of infraction (more than 100 D.C. housing code violations) that the landlords received for two buildings— 5128 and 5134 Sheriff Road NE. In the suit, Schwalb cites “mountains” of trash inside and outside of the buildings, along with unsecure doors and windows, mold contamination, rodent and bedbug infestation, and faulty electrical wiring that left tenants without working amenities.
As of press time, some tenants have reportedly been evicted.
Karen Glover, who provided a statement on April 18 about the lawsuit, reflected on her experiences as a tenant on Sheriff Road.
“This is the second year that I have been living with terrible, dangerous conditions including a massive roach infestation,” Glover said. “My stove doesn’t work and mold has accumulated around the door frames of the kitchen. I have been living without hot water because of a massive water leak that destroyed my heating tank.”
Getting in contact with her landlord, Glover said, proved cumbersome. “I repeatedly emailed the owner and never got a response,” her statement read. “I’m grateful to Attorney General Schwalb for bringing this lawsuit and what will hopefully be relief for myself and my neighbors.”
On Monday, Bowser, D.C. Councilmember Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7) and Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) General Manager and CEO Randy Clark gathered less than a mile from Sheriff Road to reveal Northern Real Estate Urban Ventures and Nix Development Company as partners for a development project at Deanwood Metro Station that will yield up to 20,000 square feet of retail space and nearly 170 units of family housing.
This announcement, which came amid post-pandemic record ridership at Deanwood Metro Station and the Bowser administration and Washington Commanders’ pursuit of a deal to bring professional football back to RFK campus, afforded the mayor the opportunity to, once again, articulate her economic development strategy.
“I’m always looking at public property, which we own and which our public private partners own, that we can have joint developments with,” Bowser said on Monday morning. “We’re celebrating this opportunity— underutilized parking lots that need a fresh start. We’re going to turn it into a vibrant hub for housing and amenities right here in Ward 7. So we’re very happy about that. We’re looking forward to the opportunities that are going to be here, even a neighborhood library.”
Bowser then revealed the upcoming presentation of an economic plan inspired by the loss of tax revenue via federal government furloughs. Despite some community members’ apprehension about a football stadium, which most recently manifested in a campaign surrounding an anti-stadium ballot measure, Bowser posited sports and entertainment as the District’s main economic engine.
“D.C. residents, especially D.C. residents right here in Ward 7, are very excited about world-class sports,” the mayor said. “They were excited about the Washington Nationals, the Washington Wizards, the Washington Capitals, the Washington Mystics, D.C. United… They know we’re the sports capital and they know what that means for our economy.”
Despite some pushback, Bowser is looking forward to the District’s sports future.
“Deputy Mayor [for Planning and Economic Development, Nina] Albert and I, and our entire team,” Bowser said, “is very focused on how we prepare D.C. for a different economy.”
A Community Walk, and a New Chance for Ward 7
Ward 7 started a new era in political leadership last fall when Felder secured a general election victory and became Vincent C. Gray’s successor on the D.C. Council.
Felder, a Ward 7 politician with D.C. government experience, promised to help a ward where, despite high educational attainment among a portion of the population, suffer from poverty and lack of resources. Since entering office, Felder has immersed himself in conversation about how to attract public investments into Ward 7.
Well before he joined Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Ashley Ruff and D.C. Councilmembers Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) and Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) on a community walk through portions of Downtown Ward 7 in early April, the freshman legislator had already articulated his Fiscal Year 2026 budget priorities to Bowser.
“We want to make sure that there’s funding to support… Northeast Heights Development,” Felder told The Informer on April 3 in reference to a letter he sent Bowser. “We also want to support the Minnesota Avenue Main Street as well as a small area plan for this community.”
Having started his service on the council in January, Felder emphasized his goals for his ward.
“When we talk about Ward 7, we have this theme in which now is the time for Ward 7 to see its fair share,” Felder continued. “What does that look like? That looks like investing in the future of RFK. That looks like investing in projects like Capital Gateway or Fletcher Johnson. And most importantly, that looks like investing in our downtown business corridor, which is Minnesota Avenue [and] Benning Road.”
Felder then pivoted to Ward 7 residents—returning citizens and those dealing with mental health issues— who, he noted, often require a special kind of public support.
“Trying to figure out for our individuals who may be experiencing substance abuse or matriculating back into the community, that there’s funding to support re-entry services as well as behavioral health,” Felder said. “And then last but not least, we know that there’s a lot of men—adult men from various ages [dealing with public health challenges]— so we want to make sure that there’s funding in the budget to support programming.”
Aspects of that vision resonated with a Ward 7 resident who identified himself as Diesel.
On April 3, Diesel counted among those who stood along Minnesota Avenue in Northeast as a group that included Felder, Pinto, Allen, and Ruff, starting at Bank of America, walked along the corridor. By the time the group reached Diesel and his friends, he was standing in front of a local liquor store that Ruff identified as a loitering hotspot.
In speaking about his desires for Ward 7, Diesel criticized behavioral health programs he said failed him and other District residents.
“There’s a lot of programs out here [to] help the people [but] what do they really help?” Diesel questioned. “I’ve been with the government [programs] for years and they keep playing with me.”
For Diesel, the solution also lies in providing affordable housing.
“If you can clean the streets up from the homeless, D.C. might be better,” Diesel said. “D.C. might turn around, [but] as long as there are homeless people out here, you can’t do nothing.”
Another Ward 7 resident by the name of D. Clark shared thoughts similar to Diesel, particularly as it related to the use of District buildings. In the months that Clark, a returning citizen, has been back around his stomping grounds, he said he’s become more cognizant about the potential that can be unlocked once investments pour into Minnesota Avenue and Benning Road.
“It’s a gold mine down here,” Clark told The Informer. “We can have kids right now to clean up the community, pay them a couple of dollars when they get out of school, start a little after school program with kids, make music, arts and crafts, keep them off the streets and get McDonald’s certificates for cleaning up [the] community.”
Since completing his federal prison stint last fall, Clark has struggled to recover from the death of his mother and what he described as his new reality in a changing city. In pointing out the influx of new, non-Black residents moving into Ward 7, Clark lamented not seeing the Black people in his community enjoy a similar level of success.
“Stuff ain’t really changed like that for the better for Black people,” Clark told The Informer. “I wouldn’t necessarily point the finger at nobody because I like Muriel Bowser. She’s human, she can do what she can do, [but] it’s the city’s fault because they [are] so worried about locking motherfuckers up for the wrong shit.”
Bridging the Gap with Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Ashley Ruff
Ruff, in her second term as an advisory neighborhood commissioner, has three community walks under her belt.
As Ruff explained, however, the most recent walk represented a milestone of sorts because it involved three council members, including Pinto, who stoked controversy last year in her embrace of the Secure D.C. omnibus bill.
For Ruff, the future of her Ward 7 community depends on Pinto’s ability to see, firsthand, the resources needed to tackle the root causes of crime and violence.
“We have money allocated for these services, and we deserve these services over here, so we should receive them, and we shouldn’t have to beg you for them,” Ruff told The Informer on April 2. “I’m thankful that we’re opening up people’s eyes and peeling back some layers of some things that the community has been just needing for a while. I’m just glad that…people are actually seeing Ward 7 for the gem that it really is.”
Ruff, who represents Single-Member District 7F02, spends much of her time in the John A. Wilson Building advocating for Ward 7 residents, many of whom she said she’s known for most of her life. However, Ruff admitted that such grassroots organizing can only go so far, unless council members, especially those from more well-to-do parts of the District, visit District communities that are in dire need of investment.
“I saw a lot of interfac[ing] between council members and actual residents,” Ruff told The Informer as she reflected on the events of April 3. “It’s powerful just seeing that wall being broken down because it lets you know that we can go to any of the 13 council members and have a normal conversation, not like when we go down to the Wilson building, and it feels like you [are] in a courtroom.”
