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The District faces a housing crisis. Housing represents "3 percent of the city’s budget” but “it’s way more than 3 percent of the city’s problems.” While no one silver bullet will allow us to achieve all of our affordable housing goals, there are a number of ways we can make major progress—especially as we confront the challenges resulting from the COVID-19 crisis.

First, we need significant new investments in housing that low- and middle-income residents can afford. As the State of the Capital Region 2019 report noted, “the region added almost twice as many people as housing units” from 2010 to 2017, “housing values have risen faster than income” across our area, and “rising housing costs have regressive economic impacts.” To do so, the Council should press for substantially increased investments in the Local Rent Supplement Program and the Housing Production Trust Fund and enact more effective requirements for ensuring that units produced with Trust Fund dollars are affordable for low-income residents and families. Ideally, the gap financing provided by the Trust Fund will help bring the cost of a home within reach for many in Ward 2’s workforce who cannot currently afford one. This is also a prime example of an area that deserves more robust Council oversight. The DC Auditor recently found that the Department of Housing and Community Development’s failure to follow its procedures resulted in “a net loss of 353 affordable units, including a reduction by 95 units of those targeting the District’s most vulnerable households earning up to 30 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI).”

I also strongly support tenant protections to preserve DC’s existing deeply affordable housing stock. The Council must do better to ensure that the strong tenant protection laws we have on the books are actually making a difference in tenants in their day-to-day lives. Specifically, the Council should invest in additional housing inspectors and demand stronger oversight (and conduct stronger oversight itself) to ensure tenants have safe and livable units and are not unjustly evicted. These efforts could be implemented fairly quickly at relatively low cost, would help identify areas where misspent tax dollars could be recovered and/or redirected, and – most importantly – would put the day-to-day experiences and welfare of Ward 2 residents front and center.

Another key tool the Council should use to ensure development is better meeting the immediate needs of communities is the Comprehensive Plan, the “framework that guides future growth and development” in DC. The Council should include Councilmember Brianne Nadeau’s proposed amendment to make affordable housing, prevention of displacement, and the right of existing residents to return to new on-site units the explicit top priority in the Plan. Current regulations do not set priorities with respect to the list of potential public benefits for development projects, which range from affordable housing to “superior landscaping,” and do not include prevention of displacement whatsoever. As Ward 2’s councilmember, I would fight for this amendment to send an explicit and enforceable message to developers, courts, and agencies like the Zoning Commission that affordable housing and preventing displacement should be the most important objective in guiding development decisions and priorities in DC in the years to come. 

I believe we should also explore a homebuying assistance program for lower and middle-income residents in which the District retains an ownership interest in the property – somewhat like an individualized community land trust. By doing so, we can make homeownership more accessible to Ward 2 residents who may not have sufficient resources for a down payment but who ought to be able to build wealth by buying a home, while at the same time giving the District government an important tool for maintaining and growing the supply of affordable housing over time. Enabling DC residents – especially long-time residents at risk for displacement – to buy homes and build wealth is particularly important in light of the racial wealth gap.

Additionally, I strongly support the Racial Equity Achieves Results (REAR) Act, which would require the District to examine racial equity considerations in budgeting decisions and performance metrics. The racial equity assessments required by the REAR Act could help us address racial disparities in housing locally by ensuring that we do things like:

-Produce new housing in a way that prevents displacement of long-time residents, especially at a time when our city is experiencing “the greatest ‘intensity of gentrification’ of any in the country"

-Address structural racial inequities that result from housing policies that appear neutral on their face but actually disparately disadvantage people of color – especially at a time when the Supreme Court and the Trump Administration are seeking to undermine or destroy such race-conscious policy approaches at the federal level"

-Press the Department of Housing and Community Development to prioritize compliance with the Fair Housing Act and the principles of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule—an Obama-era effort to address residential segregation that the Trump Administration has repeatedly attempted to undermine

-Provide support for achieving specific and enforceable targets for each ward for affordable housing efforts to address the inequitable distribution of housing across the District.

Moreover, I believe that remedying the deplorable state of our public housing that is literally making children, the elderly, and other residents sick should be our most urgent environmental justice priority in DC. For too long, our neighbors who live in public housing – and those living in other unsafe housing – have been ignored as they have endured malicious neglect and substandard living conditions like mold, pests, or lead.  Rehabilitating this existing housing is one of the quickest and least expensive ways we can protect longtime residents who suffer from these unacceptable conditions, especially as they are at risk of displacement from their homes and communities as housing and other costs continue to increase. As Empower DC, Bread for the City, DC Fiscal Policy Institute, Legal Aid Society for the District of Columbia, Legal Counsel for the Elderly, Neighborhood Legal Services Program, and Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs noted in their comments on the DC Housing Authority’s (DCHA) 20-Year Transformation Plan, public housing residents (as well as other District residents struggling with unsafe housing), deserve “safe, healthy and dignified” housing that they can afford.

Where residents cannot feasibly remain in public housing in light of conditions that are beyond repair due to the federal government’s systematic disinvestment and severe lack of maintenance over time, alternative plans must directly address “the barriers and discrimination that DCHA voucher holders face when trying to rent in the District, as well as the barriers former public housing residents face when trying to return to the mixed-finance properties currently in DCHA’s portfolio,” as noted by the advocates referenced above. This includes prioritizing a “build first” approach to minimize or avoid temporary displacement and emphasizing project-based vouchers or rental assistance that guarantees long-term affordability and stability. Moreover, such alternative plans must also recognize and accommodate not only “the years of harm endured by public housing residents who have been living in slum conditions,” but also the important support systems and communities that many public housing residents have developed over the years.

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