My Model- EL Haynes- Educator, Activist, Landlady

If you live in DC and you are aware of charter schools you may have heard of E.L. Haynes, full name Martha Euphemia Lofton Haynes(1890-1980), who has a charter school named after her. She was the first African American to earn a PhD in mathematics, she taught at Dunbar High School and Howard University and did a lot of education activist stuff. What helped make that possible was buy and hold real estate investment because few get rich teaching.

My personal home was one of EL Haynes property holdings and I spent some time at the CUA archives where her papers are held and got a pretty good sense of the role real estate investing played in her busy life. It started with a farm in Maryland in the 1920s or 1930s. Then during the great depression and the WWII years she, because most the of property is in her name (not her husband's) bought a bunch of city rental property. I counted 17 properties on one of her 1946 income tax sheets. Many of them were rows townhouses on the same street. Seventeen properties on 9 different streets.

She was not a full time land lady. In the archives I found some bills in her name regarding fixing this that or the other thing, but she had a company managing the properties and reporting to her. When trying to figure out who lived in my house when she owned it, I saw the report of renters who were there for a short while, something every month that had to be fixed( and the charges for those), the court notice when the renter was late (and charges for that) and a new name of the replacement tenant, with the same thing happening again and again.

I see her as a model. I like my job, and I'm not looking into expanding my real estate holdings to quit but rather to give me more options. Having that rental income gave EL Haynes options that she wouldn't have if her sole support came from her teaching and her family. She had freedom. She could afford to run afoul a the school board and denounce the segregation, because if she were fired it would not be the end of the world. I too would like the freedom though I don't currently need it, but could see a time when I might.