American Notes WASHINGTON

When Washington Mayor Marion Barry handed a golden key to Kimi Gray last week, an unprecedented transaction was at hand: tenants of a once run-down public- housing complex were about to buy the property. Gray had been fighting for this moment since 1981, when she decided that the Kenilworth projects' 464 apartments needed tenant management. Gray organized and inspired the tenants, got them to keep their kids in school and hunt for jobs. By 1986, rent receipts were up 77%; Gray says welfare dependency, once as high as 85%, is down to 3%.

All this helped move Congress last year to allow public-housing residents to buy their own homes. Kenilworth tenants will have five years, beginning in 1990, to buy co-op shares representing home ownership. Amid talk of similar undertakings in a dozen other places, Gray modestly accounted for Kenilworth's remarkable achievement: "This happens when people want change."