2023 Funding & Reform Priorities
It’s budget season again, and the Legal Clinic continues to advocate for budgets and laws that further housing justice for D.C. residents. Along with our Fair Budget Coalition and Way Home Campaign partners*, we implore D.C. to “Meet the Needs” of all D.C. residents—particularly those who struggle the most to maintain their lives in the city. Recent housing investments and legislation during the height of the pandemic were crucial to minimize the harm experienced by D.C.’s extremely low-income communities. Now, many of those programs and...
read moreJoin Tenant Advocates in Opposing Emergency Legislation to “Reform” DC Housing Authority Board
Today, the Legal Clinic joins our legal services and tenant advocacy colleagues in urging the D.C. Council to vote no on the District of Columbia Housing Authority Stabilization and Reform Emergency Amendment Act of 2022. See below for the letter we sent to the Council today. Take action to urge your elected representatives to pursue real reform instead of this bill, which is harmful at worst, performative at best. Send an email with Empower DC’s email action. Sign up to make a phone call with Jews United for Justice for Monday or...
read moreThe Longest Night of the Year: National Homeless Persons’ Remembrance Day
On December 21, winter solstice, communities across the country will recognize National Homeless Persons’ Remembrance Day.
read moreWashington Legal Clinic For the Homeless Board of Directors Appoints Amber W. Harding as New Executive Director
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, board president Jim Rocap announces that after conducting a nationwide search, the Board by unanimous vote has appointed Amber W. Harding as the new Executive Director.
read moreStatement on the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Scathing DC Housing Authority Audit
The recent report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) that lays out eighty-two ways in which the DC Housing Authority (“DCHA”) is failing residents, tenants, and voucher holders confirms what housing advocates and residents have long known.
read moreReal Rapid Re-Housing Reform Is Finally Within DC’s Reach!
We have long advocated for substantial reform for the rapid re-housing program in DC. The urgency of that advocacy intensified last winter, when the Department of Human Services announced it intended to start terminating almost 1000 families for reaching a time limit in rapid re-housing, even though the agency knew that nearly all of those families would be thrown into crisis as a result. In the spring of 2022, 66 organizations and experts and almost 400 individuals asked the DC Council to “reform rapid re-housing legislatively so that DC...
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