2025 Funding and Reform Priorities: D.C. Must Choose to Support Its People Over the years, we have seen two categories of harmful responses when D.C. elected leaders claim, rightfully or not, that there are not enough resources to meet the pressing needs in the community: 1) cuts or underfunding of housing and human services programs, and 2) tightening of eligibility or reduction in legal rights of participants in those programs. Both of...
Statement on D.C. Encampments: Destroying Communities Will Not Make D.C. Great
Hurting unhoused people with encampment clearings hurts our entire community and does nothing to end homelessness.
Press Release: Emergency Class Action Lawsuit Challenges Hundreds of Housing Assistance Terminations
Children’s Law Center, The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, and three prominent D.C. law firms filed a class action lawsuit this week with the D.C. Office of Administrative Hearings, requesting emergency relief for over 800 D.C. families facing an inevitable loss of housing due to the District’s unlawful mass terminations in the rapid re-housing program.
DC Council’s Proposed “Fix” Will Increase Rent Arrears and Evictions
We urge DC Council to vote no on the Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Emergency Act of 2024 to be voted on Tuesday, October 1. The bill is bad for tenants and landlords. If passed, it will increase evictions and housing insecurity and make it harder for tenants to pay, and landlords to collect, rent. The Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Emergency Act of 2024 does not: 1. Help tenants pay rent. 2. Help landlords pay their mortgages or...
Open Letter to Mayor Bowser: Keep Families Housed Until They Transfer to Permanent Housing Programs
We are writing to ask you to halt the exits of families in rapid re-housing until the Department of Human Services (DHS) and the D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA) can complete the housing voucher eligibility and lease-up process for the significant number of vouchers that are available now or by October 1.
Rapid Rehousing: What Happened and What’s Next?
We want to take a moment to update you on what has happened with rapid re-housing over the last few months and what the families being terminated for reaching a time limit are facing in the next few months