*DC is redeveloping the Park Morton Housing Complex with units set aside for former residents.*

by Austin Schott

As residents of Petworth head to the polls on November 8th, many races are all but decided. Since most DC residents align with the political left, the most competitive races are held during the summer Democratic primaries. The most significant outstanding citywide races are those for the two DC At-Large seats, only one of which can be held by a Democrat.

At the same time, in advance of November, it’s worth reflecting on the platforms and/or performance of Democratic nominees for mayor Muriel Bowser, DC Council Chair incumbent Phil Mendelson, and Attorney General candidate Brian Schwab.

Housing is a particularly relevant topic in Petworth as rents continue to rise and pandemic protections expire.

“People are being priced out of the city.”

It’s fairly common knowledge that DC is facing an affordable housing crisis. “People are being priced out of the city,” says Amanda Korber, a Supervising Attorney at Legal Aid, a civil legal services organization. She says it’s not just a result of the pandemic. “There have been DC residents that have been struggling to pay their rent in this expensive city for years.”

Similarly, Daniel del Pielago, Organizing Director for Empower DC, a housing advocacy organization, said, “The effects of gentrification have driven prices up may have caused displacement. And then we've had the blow of COVID-19, when many people became unemployed and lost wages.” Alongside rent increases, Pielago says “The eviction numbers are just going up and up, and up, and up.”

Bowser recognized the problem in an interview with the Washington Post in May. “When you have the type of amenities, good-paying jobs that we have in this city, people want to live here, businesses want to locate here,” she said. “And so that has made us a city where housing costs are challenging, and they didn’t just become challenging this year. I have made it the hallmark of my tenure to build more affordable housing in the city.”

Since 2015, according to At-Large Councilmember Anita Bonds, the city has created 14,000 affordable units to support those who generally cannot afford to pay rent at market level. There are an additional 20,000 low-income households who pay their rent through one of the city’s voucher programs.

Meanwhile, a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report released this month (pdf) found that “[DC Housing Authority] is not maintaining units in decent, safe, and sanitary condition” given failures and systemic problems of management and oversight.

*A photo from HUD’s scathing report on DC Housing Authority which shows mold growing in a dilapidated vacant unit. (*Credit: US Department of Housing and Urban Development)

Moreover, last year, DC’s Housing Authority board chair resigned following reports he had granted contracts to a romantic partner, according to Washington City Paper. Additional allegations of “procurement and contracting irregularities” followed.

The DC Housing Authority Housing Choice Voucher waitlist closed in 2013 due to an overflow of applications. According to the HUD report, DCHA does not have an estimate of when the wait list will reopen.

Korber had similar thoughts on public housing in the city, saying, “There has been such an under-investment from both the federal, and the local government in maintaining that housing in a dignified way.” She noted that a mixed-income model proposed by Councilmember Lewis George is more likely to be self-sustaining.

Pielago further raised the issue of delays in public housing redevelopment, saying, “We want to see a guaranteed right of return. If that replacement does happen, it doesn’t happen for a decade,” he suggested.

DC Council lacks oversight, says advocates.

Turning to our candidates, one consistent role for Chairman Phil Mendelson is identifying members of the housing committee and the housing committee chair. Anita Bonds, who is on the November ballot for a coveted At-Large Council seat, is the current chair of the Housing Committee.

Advocates claim many of these problems result from a lack of funding and oversight – areas largely within the council’s responsibilities. (Although the council and the Mayor collaborate on the budget.)

Korber claims the DCHA housing voucher waitlist, for example, is a matter of “Finding the dollars-and-cents.” And regarding oversight, she added, “We need stronger investigators… and we need to ensure that landlords are actually being held accountable to fixing violations.”

Pielago urged Mendelson to find good committee chairs, saying, “I think stronger oversight on the Council is needed. I don't think we see that under Anita Bonds. I would not be opposed to somebody else getting that appointment of chair of the Housing Committee because she's been very light-handed.”

Councilmember Lewis George, in a recent Petworth News interview, said “The city has to better staff the agency to handle the load of applications on the DCHA waitlist. There are bureaucratic issues that need to be addressed.”

She added the Council has a role in possibly “Putting more funding in the budget to hire more people to process these applications.”

The Council did pass emergency legislation seeking to increase oversight of and improve training at the DC Housing Authority following the HUD report. Although, Kenyan McDuffie, independent candidate for an At-Large Council seat, said the legislation won’t be enough to solve DCHA’s problems. Elissa Silverman, another independent Candidate for At-Large and an incumbent, has committed to increase oversight by DCHA.

Meanwhile, in an email to Petworth News, Bonds detailed her individual efforts to improve affordable housing in the city. She noted her efforts to protect “Budgets set aside for the production, preservation, and maintenance of affordable housing.” She increased assistance through the city’s Home Purchase Assistance Program, to support affordable ownership, and added $25,000 to the program to “Help first-time DC owners make critical repairs [to homes] – such as roofing and HVAC systems.” She said she also expanded housing ownership support programs to include teachers and educators.

The Mayor invests in housing production, but may miss those most in need

The mayor, for her part, has identified DC’s Housing Production Trust Fund as a priority for her administration, investing $1.4 billion in the fund and corresponding toolkit, in an effort to create 36,000 new homes by 2025. 12,000 of those homes would be affordable.

In the Petworth area, the Mayor’s administration employed a community-based approach to develop requests for proposals (RFPs), titled “OurRFP,” to redevelop the Spring Flats community. Following efforts to ensure community priorities are considered before crafting the RFP, the Spring Flats redevelopment offers 185 new housing units, including 149 affordable units and 88 designed for seniors.

At the same time, a 2021 report from the DC’s Office of the Inspector General found the city failed to provide adequate housing for extremely low income residents.

And the HUD report points to the mayor’s influence over DCHA as a potential contributing factor towards its poor performance, saying that some members of the DCHA Board of Commissioners “Believe Mayor and District appointed members vote as a group without individual review of the action requested.” The mayor appoints seven of the 13 board members.

Schwab says he will continue housing advocacy as likely AG

The Attorney General’s role in housing is quite different from that of the mayor or the Council. Current Attorney General Karl Racine, who is not running for reelection, is known for his bullishness on housing. He went as far as to, according to his office, “advocate for affordable housing, racial equity, and environmental justice in the zoning, land use, and related development processes.” AG’s are not typically advocates, but rather provide legal counsel to the Zoning Commission or Board of Zoning Adjustment.

Racine’s likely successor, Democratic nominee for AG, Brian Schwab, in a live interview with Petworth News, said he plans to continue this advocacy.

*Likely AG Brian Schwab discusses housing with Petworth New’s Drew Schneider at Moreland’s Tavern.*

“AG Racine saw an unlevel playing field in the way in which development decisions were being made,” Schwab said. “A lot of times developers, totally appropriately, have done the due diligence to determine what property makes sense. They’ve done a lot of the studies. They’ve thought about how the zoning laws may or may not apply. They come in and present a project that looks like it’s ready-to-go, and the community is then asked to respond to it. You have a day job, you’re not necessarily an expert in zoning, and all of a sudden, you have to respond to a proposed development that could have lots of downstream impacts on your neighborhood for years. AG Racine saw this was not a level playing field for good decisions to be made. If you think about negotiation between equals, coming to better results that everyone can live with, generally having the AG at the table to advocate for the community in some cases made sense.”

He also said he wants to ensure this advocacy is not discouraging development, “We can’t work our way out of this affordable housing crisis without building and growing.”

Although the November election won’t be a nail-biter for many, it’s important to be aware of the housing environment with the current cast of characters.

If you are facing inappropriate eviction or an extraordinary rent increase, Legal Aid may be able to provide support. They and other organizations have developed a central intake line for such cases. Call the Landlord Tenant Legal Assistance Network at 202-780-2575.