A gleaming affordable housing redevelopment celebrated with a ribbon-cutting less than three years ago has deteriorated into a 10-story building. Tenants have endured summer heat without air conditioning, climbed flights of stairs because elevators were shut down, encountered rats and roaches, and walked through stairwells where city inspectors found feces, urine, garbage and debris.
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued the owner and manager of Delta Pearl on Tuesday, asking a judge to intervene at the 166-unit apartment building at 1400 Florida Avenue NE and force repairs that the District says have gone undone despite repeated complaints and nearly 200 outstanding housing code violations.
“The conditions at Delta Pearl are shocking, as has been ownership’s refusal to promptly address them,” Schwalb said. “This extreme level of disrepair and neglect, and the health risks it poses to tenants, are unacceptable.”
The lawsuit names Delta 2 Owner LLC, DP Management LLC, which does business as Faria Management, and developer Buwa Binitie. The District alleges that the defendants failed to keep Delta Pearl safe and habitable and violated D.C. consumer protection and tenant receivership laws.
Neither could be reached for comment.
The allegations describe conditions that go well beyond routine maintenance disputes. According to the complaint, Delta Pearl has 199 unabated property maintenance violations from the previous 15 months. Of those, 169 were issued in 2026, and 71 were classified as emergency violations requiring correction within one day.
The building’s air conditioning stopped working July 1 as Washington sweltered through temperatures that reached 102 degrees, according to the lawsuit. Tenants reported temperatures inside their apartments reaching 84 and 94 degrees.
The District alleges tenants repeatedly tried to reach management by telephone, email, an online portal and visits to an on-site office, only to find the office empty and their attempts unanswered. When the attorney general’s office contacted management, a company official acknowledged that the building’s chiller was not functioning and blamed vandalism. Management also cited unpaid rent and said continued operations had become “financially unsustainable,” according to the complaint.
But one of the most striking allegations involves what Binitie himself allegedly told the District.
On July 30, according to the complaint, Binitie said Delta 2 Owner did not have the resources necessary to correct conditions and that he intended to relocate some tenants, remove people he described as “bad actors” and “in turn shut the building down.”
Meanwhile, tenants remained.
The building’s two elevators repeatedly failed beginning at least in December 2025. The Department of Buildings issued 15 emergency notices involving nonfunctioning elevators between December and August, including six in July alone. For several weeks in June and July, neither elevator worked, according to the lawsuit. Parents carried children up and down stairs while residents with serious medical conditions worried about the physical toll of climbing as many as 10 floors.
On July 23, DOB tagged both elevators “unsafe for use.” The complaint includes an Aug. 4 photograph showing the two elevator doors bearing the city’s markings. Another photograph, taken in a stairwell, accompanies an inspection notice concerning feces, urine and garbage. The elevators remained unusable when the lawsuit was filed.
Those stairways became particularly important because tenants had little alternative.
Inspectors reported finding feces, urine, trash and debris there. Some residents told investigators they were afraid even to touch the railings because of the conditions.
The complaint also describes an infestation that tenants say has invaded everyday life.
DOB has issued 10 notices concerning rodent and pest problems since August 2025, all of which remained unresolved when the lawsuit was filed. Inspectors documented insects inside a tenant’s dishwasher, rodent burrows outside the building and cabinets apparently chewed by rodents. When OAG investigators arrived June 10, they reported smelling an odor associated with rodents in the lobby and seeing a dead rat in the parking lot.
“Tenants at this 10-story building have been without air conditioning and working elevators since early July and face shocking, dangerous housing conditions,” Schwalb wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “We’re fighting for accountability and emergency repairs.”
Tenant Starr Lindsey told investigators she had seen rats, mice, roaches, flies and gnats. According to the complaint, she bought so many extermination and odor-control products that she had difficulty calculating what she had spent. Eventually, she adopted a cat to help keep rodents out of her apartment.
Another tenant, Tiara Humphrey, told investigators she worried about what the infestation could mean for her two young children. She said she had dealt with roaches since moving into Delta Pearl in January 2025 and that management never sent an exterminator despite being notified.
Trash appears throughout the District’s account of what went wrong. Bags accumulated in hallways and trash rooms, while garbage backed up inside the building’s chute. One tenant said the blockage once reached the seventh floor. DOB issued at least nine garbage-related infractions in July alone.
There are also fire and electrical concerns.
DOB cited management for malfunctioning fire alarm panels, problems with fire and sprinkler systems and exposed electrical wiring. One tenant reported that her apartment had no working smoke detector and said management failed to repair it after she complained. An emergency violation involving exposed wiring issued in June 2025 remained unresolved when the lawsuit was filed.
A fire struck the seventh floor in February. Most apartments on that floor were subsequently boarded up, and photographs included in the lawsuit show plywood covering a doorway months later. The District says required repairs were never completed and describes the floor as appearing deserted.
Security presents another problem.
The exterior gate has been broken since at least August 2025, according to the complaint. A February fire disrupted the electrical system that operated key-fob access, and the system was never restored, leaving unrestricted access to residential floors. Inspectors also cited doors that would not lock and stairwell doors missing doorknobs.
Tenants reported seeing people who did not live at Delta Pearl sleeping in common areas and occupying vacant apartments. The complaint says an inspector found bedding and furnishings in the package room in July.
The allegations grow more serious from there. Tenants reported shootings in the building and parking lot, and Metropolitan Police Department records reviewed by OAG showed at least three incidents involving gunfire on the property or immediately nearby during the previous year.
“This severe level of neglect and the refusal to even try to fix critical health and safety risks is unacceptable,” Schwalb wrote on X. “And it is endangering the families and seniors who live at 1400 Florida Ave NE.”
‘What Has Happened … Defies Reason‘
For Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker, the deterioration is particularly difficult to reconcile with what stood at the same address only a few years ago.
“Just two short years ago, I helped cut the ribbon on 1400 Florida Ave NE and welcomed neighbors into a beautiful space that was funded with tens of millions of dollars in tax credits and public financing,” Parker said. “What has happened since then defies reason.”
Parker said his staff spent months taking residents’ complaints to District agencies.
“There is simply no excuse for the disturbing and rapid decline of this property,” he said.
Delta Pearl occupies a building originally constructed in 1979 as affordable senior housing. Delta 2 Owner purchased the property in 2022, and Binitie obtained financing the following year to renovate and redevelop it through Dantes Partners in partnership with Gilbane Development Corporation and Delta Housing Corporation. The renovation was completed in November 2023.
Fifty-one percent of the 166 apartments are designated for residents earning below 80% of area median income. The lawsuit describes Delta Pearl as an important source of affordable housing in Ward 5’s rapidly developing H Street corridor.
The case could have consequences beyond Delta Pearl. The complaint says Binitie owns 15 D.C. properties across Wards 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8. All 15 are designated affordable housing and receive various forms of public housing financing or subsidies. Faria manages 12 of them.
The District is asking the court for temporary, preliminary and permanent orders compelling compliance with housing law, restitution and damages for tenants and civil penalties. The lawsuit also asks the court to appoint a receiver with authority to develop and oversee a rehabilitation plan and require the defendants to contribute money beyond rents collected at Delta Pearl if necessary to eliminate dangerous conditions.
Department of Buildings Director Brian Hanlon said the number of unresolved violations demanded action.
“The law is clear,” Hanlon said. “A property owner has the ultimate responsibility for maintaining a safe, secure, and code-compliant property.”
Schwalb said his office is seeking immediate court intervention rather than waiting for conditions to deteriorate further.
“We are suing to force Binitie and his companies to make critical safety repairs,” Schwalb said, “and to do so immediately.”
