Washington Highlands



Washington Highlands is a large residential neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C., bounded on three sides by Oxon Run Park and on the fourth (southeast) side by Southern Avenue. It is the largest residential neighborhood in Ward 8, the poorest and least developed section of Washington. Most of the neighborhood is comprised of low-income and public housing apartment complexes, including the two large housing projects Valley Green and Highland Dwellings. A new tennis and learning center, combining sports and education, is there. Former neighborhood residents include the late Calvin and Wilhelmina Rolark, (founder of the United Black Fund and Councilwoman), who lived on Foxhall Place, and country singer/entertainer Roy Clark who grew up on First Street. In recent years a gated community, Walter Washington Estates, has drawn middle-class residents. The most prominent landmark in Washington Highlands is Greater Southeast Community Hospital, the facility that serves the majority of public health-care needs in the District of Columbia, and whose funding and finances are stretched.

Washington Highlands is among the most violent neighborhoods in the District of Columbia; approximately one third of the city's 181 homicides in 2007 occurred there. The neighborhood became the focus of media attention in January 2008, when city officials discovered that Washington Highlands resident Banita Jacks had been living for months in her rowhouse with the bodies of her four murdered children in advanced states of decomposition upstairs.