For months, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) alleged that many affordable housing tenants were abusing emergency rental assistance to avoid paying rent. That trend, she said, has exacerbated a crisis that, if not immediately addressed, will result in the significant loss of the District’s affordable housing stock.
On Sept. 30, Bowser appeared alongside D.C. Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D) in support of legislation they said would compel tenants to pay their rent.
“We got $100 million in unpaid rent to affordable housing providers. That number will skyrocket to $150 million by next year if nothing changes,” Bowser said, emphasizing that her goal wasn’t to put more people on the street but to recalibrate the District’s affordable housing ecosystem.
Bowser, responding to an Informer inquiry, didn’t cite any empirical evidence of tenants “gaming the system” due to the current emergency rental assistance laws that don’t require tenants to prove their income. However, she did say that anecdotal evidence shows that some tenants are applying for emergency assistance despite having jobs.
Earlier this year, the Bowser administration reached a milestone of 36,000 housing units, a third of which are affordable. This happened just months short of the 2025 goal that Bowser set at the beginning of her second term. However, Bowser warned that those projects and up-and-coming affordable housing developments are under threat as long as unpaid rents are spurring the city’s apartment vacancy rate and placing landlords under the threat of foreclosure.
During the earlier part of September, affordable housing developer Adrian Washington announced the closure of Neighborhood Development Corporation due to an economic “perfect storm.”
If passed on Oct. 1, Mendelson’s legislation, titled the Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Emergency Amendment Act, narrows the potency of emergency rental assistance by giving judges discretion in determining whether applicants can delay their eviction. It also prevents affordable housing tenants from self-certifying their income while applying for emergency rental assistance.
At a time when the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development is gearing up to provide landlords with financing that prevents foreclosure, stabilizes affordable housing properties, and ensures the viability of affordable housing properties under construction and in development, Bowser calls the Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Emergency Amendment Act the first step in stopping delinquent tenants from skirting the law.
“Before COVID, it took about six months to resolve a rent dispute. Now it takes 1.5 to two years,” Bowser said. “One of the drivers has been the change to [the emergency rental assistance program], which was designed to support low-income residents facing unforeseen emergencies, not perpetually prevent landlords from taking action for rent nonpayment.”
Advocates Push Back against Proposed Changes to Emergency Rental Assistance
Emergency rental assistance provides funding for overdue rent, late fees, court costs, security deposits and first month’s rent for tenants moving into a new apartment. In years past, eligible tenants needed to make less than 40% of the area median income and be facing a housing emergency.
However, D.C. Department of Human Services recently closed the ERAP application portal for Fiscal Year 2025 to explore reforms in collaboration with the D.C. Council. Those reforms appear in the Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Emergency Amendment Act.
Mendelson predicted that he would get majority, if not unanimous, council support for the emergency legislation during the council’s Oct. 1 legislative meeting.
“We have a long history of landlord-tenant controversy, but this cuts at both sides,” Mendelson said. “It’s hurting affordable housing providers, which affects maintenance of current projects and the prospect of more affordable housing units. We’ve seen people taken for eviction for tens of thousands of dollars. There are outliers of $70,000 and more being owed in rent. Some of those cases occur from STAY.”
On Sept. 26, a coalition that includes Legal AID DC, Bread for the City, Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center, and Legal Counsel for the Elderly sent a letter to D.C. council members in opposition to the emergency legislation.
The bill, advocates said, does nothing to address delays in eviction cases and processing of rental assistance. Tenants, they said, are acting in good faith when they apply for emergency rental assistance, only experiencing delays when government and court bureaucracy slows down the payment of rent.
That dilemma would only worsen with the passage of the bill, advocates wrote in their letter. “Eliminating a tenant’s ability to self-certify by imposing a documentation requirement will create further delays in processing timelines,” the letter read.
“Moreover, requiring an applicant to prove that an emergency led to the need for assistance will unnecessarily limit who is eligible without giving ineligible applicants any new pathways to assistance,” the letter continued. “If the goal is to eliminate delays and increase rent payments to landlords, requiring more paperwork and limiting eligibility will be counterproductive.”
Landlords Weigh In
Several affordable housing providers who converged on Room G9 of the John A. Wilson Building on Sept. 30 provided a different perspective. Janine Lind, president of Enterprise Community Partners, recounted a years-long struggle to collect rent from tenants who’ve not only been delinquent, but non communicative about their economic hardship.
Lind, whose District affordable housing portfolio includes 17 properties and more than 3,200 units, expressed a willingness to help her tenants, many of whom live in buildings located east of the Anacostia River. She mentioned past attempts to do so, where she went as far as negotiating the forgiveness of past due rent to ensure that tenants tend to their obligations.
“We’re not on the verge of shutting down, but the level of funding is in double digits and it’s not sustainable,” Lind told The Informer. “This legislation would help residents understand that we’re part of an ecosystem. Our main focus is getting them to start paying their rent going forward.”
Dean Hunter also counted among those who expressed support for the Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Emergency Amendment Act. He called it a reversal of “experimental” pandemic-era laws that turned the affordable housing ecosystem on its head.
Hunter, founder and CEO of the Small Multifamily & Rental Owners Association, said such laws have affected landlords of market-rate single-family and multifamily units. For years, he’s been lobbying the D.C. Council for legal protections, much like what’s outlined in the Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Emergency Amendment Act.
While he said the council has gone in the right direction, Hunter continues to advocate for a bailout of all landlords, not just those owning affordable units.
“The D.C. Council has insulated tenants so much that they’ve become accustomed to not paying rent,” Hunter said. “You have people with government jobs not paying their rent. You have people moving from Maryland and Virginia not paying rent. If Adrian Washington is going out of business, what’s happening with the mom and pop providers? We need to utilize best practices.”