When Oramenta Newsome came to D.C. in the mid-1990s, the city was careening toward bankruptcy. There was no shortage of affordable housing because nobody wanted to invest in the city. As head of the New York-based Local Initiatives Support Corp.'s D.C. office, Newsome's job was to work with an energetic bunch of nonprofits to leverage private-sector investments to finance affordable housing and community development projects.