Councilman Marion Barry wants to increase homeownership in Ward 8, the city’s poorest with the highest unemployment, by telling developers the only residences they’ll be allowed to build there are ones they intend to sell. Barry this week introduced legislation that would put a moratorium on building new apartment buildings in the Southeast ward that encompasses Anacostia, Congress Heights and Washington Highlands. The act aims to drum up more options for potential homeowners in the ward, where 76 percent of residents are renters, the highest percentage in the District.

“Ward 8 has the largest number of section 8 housing — we’re the poorest ward,” Barry said Thursday. “For the last four decades Ward 8 has lost people [because] renters tend to be more transitory. They can’t pay rent, they get evicted, they move from place to place.”