End the Cliff: We Must Prevent 2,000 Families from Losing Housing

The director of the D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS), Laura Zeilinger, announced at a D.C. Council hearing that the agency would be terminating 2,000 families from rapid re-housing by the end of September. We are already seeing these families come to us for legal assistance. More families will likely be terminated next year without reform of the program. The Bowser administration claims they do not have enough money to sustain all those families in housing and that the program has grown too large in recent years. Without significant investment in permanent housing resources and real reform to the broken rapid re-housing program, thousands of D.C. families will lose their housing support and likely face eviction or homelessness. When that happens, we know there will not be enough eviction prevention funds or emergency shelter to support the families.

(If you are thinking this sounds familiar, it is because we have been warning that this program was headed for disaster for years. We have advocated for a more humane exit strategy from the time-limited rental assistance program almost since the day rapid re-housing first showed up in D.C. because short-term housing programs with strict time limits will never work on a large scale in jurisdictions where the gap between income and market rent is so cavernous.)

This crisis was entirely foreseeable and preventable-without resorting to mass terminations and trauma. When the pandemic hit, the Bowser administration rightly put a pause on rapid re-housing exits. When the public health emergency ended, they proposed terminating almost 1000 families to "right-size" the program. But those families were still struggling, and the gap between income and rent had only widened for most low-income families during the pandemic. We, along with many partners and allies, advocated for families to exit the program only when they could afford market rent or had been transitioned to a more appropriate housing program. That spring, the D.C. Council invested in more housing resources for these families and Chairman Mendelson introduced a bill to reform the rapid re-housing program.

Meanwhile, the Bowser administration continued to grow the time-limited program while failing to fund sufficient permanent housing subsidies. Now, despite resounding support for reform, DHS is proposing a historic number of terminations and the most arbitrary, strictest time limit the program has ever had, directly contrary to the law that the D.C. Council passed last spring to ensure extensions would be considered. Housing providers no longer even have the discretion to extend a family's time in the program based on whether the family just had a baby, whether they just need a few months to recover from a health condition, whether they are about to get a degree, or any other individual circumstance. You can read our comments, along with Children's Law Center and Legal Aid DC, on the recent emergency regulations here. Rapid re-housing is now a one-size-fits-all program, or perhaps a one-size-fits-no-one program.

The reality is that due to structurally created poverty and D.C.'s systemic lack of affordable housing, most families placed in rapid re-housing simply cannot grow their income enough to afford market rent in 12 to 18 months. (Recent data provided by the agency shows that less than 1% of families in the program can afford market rent at exit.) Terminating families for reaching a time limit when the agency knows the program has done nothing to support the families in increasing their income enough to afford market rent is unfair, unjust, and will lead to disproportionate harm to low-income Black families, who make up 97% of the participants in the program.

Fortunately, the D.C. Council has a strong path forward to prevent the continuing trauma of this failing program. We are asking the Council to:

1) Demand, and legislate, that the Mayor immediately withdraw all time-limit termination notices that have been issued by the Department of Human Services (DHS) and not issue any more terminations for time limits unless the participant can afford market rent. (This ask includes disapproving the program's emergency regulations as well as striking the Mayor's proposed Budget Support Act subtitle that deprives participants of due process.);

2) Increase funding for permanent affordable housing vouchers for families in next year's budget so that rapid re-housing participants can transition into a program that better maintains housing stability, including Permanent Supportive Housing, Targeted Affordable Housing, and Local Rent Supplement Program tenant vouchers; and

3) Pass and fund the Rapid Rehousing Reform Amendment Act to fix this deeply flawed time-limited program, once and for all.

D.C.'s rapid re-housing program is the least successful, most harmful, and most expensive housing intervention D.C. operates. Please join us in demanding housing justice for D.C. residents in rapid re-housing by taking action here.

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