Right now, I am looking for apartments in DC, specifically within the District itself.

There are basically three ways to go.

1) Insane cost
2) Daunting Physical Risk
3) Tolerable Medium

I can go get a place in Anacostia or Congress Heights reasonably cheaply. I have lived in high-crime zones before and do not have a phobia about them. On the other hand, I would rather not be walking in a high-crime zone holding a five-year-old's hand and a three-year-old's torso from my car to my front door in the dark, at least not without friends to assist. Transit is not particularly good east of the River; the Green Line probably should have been split into two lines from the beginning, one aiming east towards Suitland and one towards Oxon Hill and the new National Harbor construction. There is a whole series of buses that serve Congress Heights but do not connect to the "Congress Heights" Metro Station. Landlords' ads brag that there is now a Giant in Anacostia; this is the bigotry of low expectations reaching its apotheosis. I will take a tour of the neighborhood but people whose caution I respect have warned me against Congress Heights at any price.

One can also get an Ego Palace, on top of the straight-out-of-StuffWhitePeopleLike.com Whole Foods., for an insane price. I think these $3000+/month palaces are aimed at Mom and Dad, who want Jane or Blair to have a perfect college experience. So they will pay, and pay brutally. Not I, not even if I were clearing 12K a month net of taxes.

But if you are a tenacious renter, you can find some decent one-bedrooms for under $1250/month, sometimes with utilities included, outside of drug zones and car-theft killing fields (or literal killing fields.) You may have to take the bus rather than the rail to work, but the bus system in DC is quite good and sometimes breathtakingly good. I think that this would work well.