Indicating how much he paid for it."

"Who'd he buy it from?"

"The city. It was abandoned."

"He probably paid five thousand for it. Ten at the most."

"Not a bad return."

"Not bad. It's a step up for Gantry. He's been a nickel and dimer--duplexes and car

washes and quickshop groceries, small ventures."

"Why would he buy the warehouse and rent space for cheap apartments?"

"Cash. Let's say he pays five thousand for it, then spends another thousand throwing up a

few walls and installing a couple of toilets. He gets the lights turned on, and he's in

business. Word gets out; renters show up; he charges them a hundred bucks a month,

payable only in cash. His clients are not concerned with paperwork anyway. He keeps the

place looking like a dump, so if the city comes in he says they're just a bunch of squatters.

He promises to kick them out, but he has no plans to. It happens all the time around here.

Unregulated housing."

I almost asked why the city didn't intervene and enforce its laws, but fortunately I caught

myself. The answer was in the potholes too numerous to count or avoid; and the fleet of

police cars, a third of which were too dangerous to drive; and the schools with roofs

caving in; and the hospitals with patients stuffed in closets; and the five hundred

homeless mothers and children unable to find a shelter. The city simply didn't work. ,

And a renegade landlord, one actually getting people off the streets, did not seem like a

priority.

"How do you find Hector Palma?" he asked.

"I'm assuming the firm would be smart enough not to fire him. They have seven other

offices, so I figure they've got him tucked away somewhere. I'll find him."

We were downtown. He pointed, and said, "See those trailers stacked on top of each

other. That's Mount Vernon Square."

It was half a city block, fenced high to hinder a view from the outside. The trailers were

different shapes and lengths, some dilapidated, all grungy.

"It's the worst shelter in the city. Those are old postal trailers the government gave to the

District, which in turn had the brilliant idea of filling them with homeless. They're packed

in those trailers like sardines in a can."

At Second and D, he pointed to a long, three-story building--home to thirteen hundred

people.

* * *

The CCNV was founded in the early seventies by a group of war protestors who had

assembled in Washington to torment the government. They lived together in a house in

Northwest. During their protests around the Capitol, they met homeless veterans of

Vietnam, and began taking them in. They moved to larger quarters, various places around

the city, and their number grew. After the war, they turned their attention to the plight of

the D.C. homeless. In the early eighties, an activist named Mitch Snyder appeared on the

scene, and quickly became a passionate and noisy voice for street people.

CCNV found an abandoned junior college, one built with federal money and still owned

by the government, and invaded it with six hundred squatters. It became their headquarters, and their home. Various efforts were made to displace them, all to no avail.

In 1984, Snyder endured a fifty-one-day hunger strike to call attention to the neglect of

the homeless. With his reelection a month away, President Reagan boldly announced his

plans to turn the building into a model shelter for the homeless. Snyder ended his strike.

Everyone was happy. After the election, Reagan reneged on his promise, and all sorts of

nasty litigation ensued.

In 1989, the city built a shelter in Southeast, far away from downtown, and began

planning the removal of the homeless from the CCNV. But the city found the homeless to

be an ornery lot. They had no desire to leave. Snyder announced that they were boarding

up windows and preparing for a siege. Rumors were rampant---eight hundred street

people were in there; weapons were stockpiled; it would be a war.

The city backed away from its deadlines, and managed to make peace. The CCNV grew

to thirteen hundred beds. Mitch Snyder committed suicide in 1990, and the city named a

street after him.

It was almost eight-thirty when we arrived, time for the residents to leave. Many had jobs,

most wanted to leave for the day. A hundred men loitered around the front entrance,

smoking cigarettes and talking the happy talk of a cold morning after a warm night's rest.

Inside the door on the first level, Mordecai spoke to a supervisor in the "bubble." He

signed his name and we walked across the lobby, weaving through and around a swarm

of men leaving in a hurry. I tried hard not to notice my whiteness, but it was impossible. I

was reasonably well dressed, with a jacket and tie. I had known affluence for my entire

life, and I was adrift in a sea of black--young tough street men, most of whom had

criminal records, few of whom had three dollars in their pockets. Surely one of them

would break my neck and take my wallet. I avoided eye contact and frowned at the floor.

We waited by the intake room.

"Weapons and drugs are automatic lifetime bans," Mordecai said, as we watched the men

stream down the stairway. I felt somewhat safer.

"Do you ever get nervous in here?" I asked.

"You get used to it." Easy for him to say. He spoke the language.

On a clipboard next to the door was a sign-up sheet for the legal clinic. Mordecai took it

and we studied the names of our clients. Thirteen so far. "A little below average," he said.

While we waited for the key, he filled me in. "That's the post office over there. One of the

frustrating parts of this work is keeping up with our clients. Addresses are slippery. The

good shelters allow their people to send and receive mail." He pointed to another nearby

door. "That's the clothes room. They take in between thirty and forty new people a week.

The first step is a medical exam; tuberculosis is the current scare. Second step is a visit

there for three sets of clothes--underwear, socks, everything. Once a month, a client can come back for another suit, so by the end of the year he has a decent wardrobe. This is

not junk. They get more clothing donated than they can ever use."

"One year?"

"That's it. They boot them after one year, which at first may seem harsh. But it isn't. The

goal is self-sufficiency. When a guy checks in, he knows he has twelve months to clean

up, get sober, acquire some skills, and find a job. Most are gone in less than a year. A few

would like to stay forever."

A man named Ernie arrived with an impressive ring of keys. He unlocked the door to the