Teresa Edmondson is a community activist who led the process of converting her rental building into a limited equity housing cooperative. Her efforts fulfilled the promise to enable tenants to become owners, when the building was purchased and financed to give a home to people recovering from substance abuse. Born and raised in New Jersey, Teresa grew up in a Black, middle-class family. Her father was instrumental in teaching her and her siblings about what it meant to be a homeowner, as well as staying on top of one’s finances. Both her parents were graduates from historically Black universities and Black Greek systems which imbued them with a sense of service to community, and they passed that on to their children. With a brother at Howard University and a college boyfriend from D.C., Teresa came often to D.C. as a young woman. She moved to D.C. in 1995, first to help with the care of her sister-in-law's young children but eventually forging her own path. Mid-career, Teresa suffered a life changing physical accident that took several years to recover from. In that time, she moved through depression and economic hardships and got connected to D.C.’s Department of Behavioral Health. However, with a plucky spirit, she still found opportunities to help others in challenging times and slowly but surely went from being a recipient of services to getting hired to help fellow souls in need of mental, emotional, and spiritual nourishment. During that time, she found housing at 1477 Newton Street. There, her activist spirit again led her to pursue what many perceived as a wild chase, to realize the promise of ownership for the residents of her building.