As the days ticked down on 2021, many of the 1,100 families still living at the Barcroft Apartments were packing boxes in preparation for a rumored eviction. In October, they had been notified that the property was on the market and the owner hoped to close by Dec. 31. These were the holdouts, all of them on month-to-month leases with no legal means to block the sale or stop a developer from replacing them with market-rate renters or homeowners.
On Dec. 23, one of the holdouts called the county’s housing division, feeling out of options. What the caller didn’t realize was that — because of an earlier phone call to the same office — dozens of people had already been working nonstop to make sure no Barcroft resident would face eviction.
Anne Venezia, Arlington County’s housing director, remembers the earlier call quite well, when D.C.-based developer Jair Lynch called her directly to ask for the county’s financing support to allow the company to redevelop Barcroft Apartments…
Read the full story from the Washington Business Journal.
