News

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 funding sources have ended, but residents still face significant difficulties. Homelessness, housing instability, lack of… Read more…

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 Tuesday.   December 19, 2022 The Hon. Phil… Read more…

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 residents cannot be terminated for a time limit until they can… Read more…

On Tuesday, September 20, 2022, the DC Council passed The Migrant Services and Supports Emergency Act of 2022 without making any of the significant changes that we advocated for. Councilmember Pinto tried to amend the bill to remove many of the harmful provisions and to add in legal and safety protections for migrants. Councilmember Nadeau and Mayor Bowser strongly opposed the amendment, and managed to convince their colleagues to follow their lead. Councilmembers Silverman, Lewis George, and Gray voted for Pinto’s amendment, but it failed 9-4. The result is that recent migrants have no legal, health or safety protections, no… Read more…