By the late 1800s, many people were concerned about poor living conditions in alleys all over the city. Social reformers turned their attention to advocating housing improvements. One reformer wrote, "the people studied are admirably resourceful in their use of edible wild plants for food" — able to "get a few of these plants from vacant lots and along the river bank."

For a time, there was plenty of local wild food to be found. The Federal Writers Project reported in the 1930s that,

"Marshes of wild rice extend over much of the Anacostia River estuary, and, along the lower Potomac, wild celery, Peltandra, and various waterweeds.... Waterfowl, cranes, rails, pigeons, grouse, bobolinks, and blackbirds were sold in the Washington market as late as 1912; and, finally, with the draining and clearing of the land for real-estate development, many bird haunts ceased to exist."

In some parts of the city, archaeologists have found evidence of wild foods gathered and used into the 1900s.

After decades of advocacy, one 1940s report states:

"With all the notoriety, the alleys remain fundamentally unchanged; some of the homes are comfortable, some are fair and some are, to use an over-used adjective, ‘deplorable.’ The people who live there represent many different grades of culture; some are coarse migrants, some suspicious and bitter, and other gracious and poised."

Today, in the Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom neighborhoods, alley dwellings are highly desirable housing.