During its Nov. 18 additional legislative meeting, the D.C. Council kept it relatively short with its confirmation of Rachel Pierre as director of the D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS), and the approval of revenue bonds projects for The Field School, Children’s National Medical Center, Early Childhood Academy Public Charter School, and Richard Wright Public Charter School.
Other agenda items concerned the jurisdictional transfer of National Park Service land for the construction of the 11th Street Bridge Park, and the approval of a resolution recognizing the 15th anniversary of Labyrinth Games and Puzzles, based in Eastern Market.
A lot has happened since then.
This edition of The Collins D.C. Council Report explores the emergency rental snafu that unfolded later that week, one council member’s take on the fight against congressional interference, and questions of how D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation can better serve youth.
In Aftermath of ERAP Application Mishap, White Criticizes New Process and D.C. Budget Priorities
On Nov. 20, Pierre faced her first test as the official director of D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS) when hundreds of residents struggled to secure emergency rental assistance, more commonly known as ERAP.
In lieu of online registration, DHS had residents make appointments on a hotline that didn’t work throughout much of the day. D.C. Councilmember Trayon White (D-Ward 8) reached out to Pierre for answers, but only after attempting to call the hotline himself five times.
“I’m asking her what precautions did they take to ensure that phone lines was working?” White told The Informer. “We got a budget. This is the D.C. government. People said they was on the phone for 60 minutes and then it just hung up. It just hung up immediately.”
In a statement, DHS explained the reasons for the issues on Thursday and revealed that they scheduled 1,100 ERAP application appointments.
Further scheduling has been paused while those applications are processed. In a statement, officials said that future availability depends on the budget.
“Despite advanced planning, DHS underestimated the high call volumes and in-person demand we experienced, leading to technical issues with our phone system and long lines outside the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center,” DHS said. “While the DHS team was able to quickly shift operations to support residents waiting in line, we could have done better. DHS will be reviewing its performance and working closely with the mayor and council to reassess ERAP moving forward.”
On Thursday, White counted among those on the scene at Virginia Williams, the District’s only ERAP application site, as the line wrapped around the building.
“I saw people in a panic, not knowing they were going to have somewhere for their kids to live in a couple of weeks,” the Ward 8 council member later told The Informer. “Some people already had rent, some people already had court dates, some people already went to court. I saw a spirit of fear and hopelessness on people’s faces. For a lot of people, that’s their last resort.”
During the most recent budget season, when Ward 8 lacked ward-level representation, the D.C. Council struggled to restore cuts to ERAP, only ending up with just below $9 million instead of $27 million.
On Friday, White took to Instagram, where he announced a meeting scheduled for Nov. 25 aimed at helping residents better understand the budget deliberation process.
He expressed a belief that more must be done for the least of D.C. residents.
“We have to be real serious about getting people access to capital, careers, and a real education,” White said. “[Residents] have to know how the budget works. They have to know…where we’re spending money, because we have more money right now than we ever had in D.C. history.”
In the aftermath of the ERAP application hotline malfunction, a couple council members issued statements. D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau criticized DHS for, as she explained it, not utilizing tools that had been developed for a problem that District officials know too well.
“WHY are we not using the technology we paid to develop to at least do the initial intake?,” Nadeau asked. “Community-based organizations could still follow up to schedule appointments after that. Even after the money is exhausted, they could follow up to offer counseling and support through other programs. This is a mess and there is just no excuse for it.”
Nadeau demanded answers from DHS. For White however, the problem goes well beyond oversight.
“You can have all the oversight you want, but oversight is after the fact,” White told The Informer. “It’s putting responsible, capable people in place that’s going to deliver for God’s people. It’s really on the mayor’s office to get this…right.”
Pierre, who joined DHS in 2020, has served as the agency’s interim director in 2023, and more recently this year. In her role, she oversaw what’s been described as the smooth disbursement of SNAP benefits after the longest government shutdown in the U.S. ended.
Though she’s been commended for her stewardship of DHS, for some council members there remains the question of rapid rehousing processing and how Pierre will respond to the Trump administration’s insistence on “beautifying” the District.
On Nov. 18, during the council’s Committee of the Whole meeting, White and D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) questioned D.C. Councilmember Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3) about Pierre’s stewardship of the ERAP application process. Despite their concerns about the barriers that exist with applying via phone applications and in-person interviews, Frumin said that it doesn’t look likely that DHS will revert to online applications.
“The idea [is] doing in-person interviews where you can evaluate what’s the best tool for this person,” Frumin told Lewis George on Nov. 18, explaining what he saw as the benefits of the status quo.
Frumin, further reflecting on his engagement with Pierre, added that it’s essential for DHS to be thorough and methodical in its use of ERAP funds.
“Maybe [applicants] qualify for ERAP but maybe there’s something that’s different for them that would be better,” Frumin continued. “The alternative that we had was we opened up the portal for an hour and it was just a question of whether or not somebody got lucky and got through. This is an effort to make it more systematic and more nuanced in the delivery and I don’t think we’re going back.”
As Congressional Interference Continues, Felder Seeks Greater Engagement ‘Across the Aisle’
Congressional Republicans’ assault on locally approved laws continued on Nov. 19 with the House’s passage of legislation that undoes police reform measures and, once again, makes the District a cash bail jurisdiction.
In the days and hours leading to that fateful vote, the Deanwood community lost one of its own during an encounter with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
The police-involved shooting of David Warren Childs came just days after federal officers, more specifically Homeland Security investigators, fired their weapons while accompanying Sixth District police officers on two separate traffic stops. For D.C. Councilmember Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7), these situations involving local and federal police warrant immediate action, especially as MPD works on salvaging its post-surge relationship with community members.
“When you have these federal officers who feel the need to withdraw their weapon, what it does is it undermines the progress of actual MPD officers and the trust that community members have built with MPD in recent years,” Felder said on Friday.
On Oct. 30, during a D.C. Council public safety and judiciary committee hearing, Felder questioned Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith about the Oct. 17 federal officer-involved shooting and MPD’s alleged cover-up that led to dropped charges against the suspect.
D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2), committee chair, has since announced a Dec. 4 public safety hearing where MPD-federal officer collusion, among other topics, will be discussed.
On Friday, just four days after his visit to 47th Place in Northeast, where Childs was pronounced dead, Felder had strong words for MPD, an entity over which the D.C. Council has relatively more control — at least for the time being.
“My job as the council member, especially while we have an increase in police presence, is to make sure that neighbors’ civil liberties are not being encroached upon, but furthermore, making sure that officers are not abusing their authority,” Felder told The Informer. “I plan…to continue to be vigilant, continue to go to the scene of events like this, and continue to work with MPD.”
Even though some Ward 7 leaders, in the aftermath of the Benning Road federal-officer involved shooting and alleged cover-up, feel differently, Felder said he has no reason to question Sixth District Commander Jaron Hickman’s willingness to cooperate.
“He has been very transparent,” Felder said about Hickman. “And he has not, under no event that I can think of, he’s not withheld any information. He’s been great in situations like this.”
On Wednesday, House Republicans secured the passage of the District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act of 2025 with 28 Democrats voting in support of the legislation. When it came to the Common-Sense Law Enforcement and Accountability Now in DC Act of 2025, 20 Democrats sided with the Republican majority in the House.
The House’s passage of those bills follows their approval of other legislation aimed at: making the D.C. attorney a presidential appointee; charging 14-year-olds as adults for violent crimes; nullifying Second Look laws through which youth offenders secured their early prison release; and extending the congressional review period for locally approved laws.
The District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act of 2025 and the Common-Sense Law Enforcement and Accountability Now in DC Act of 2025 will go to the Senate. That’s where Rep. James Walkinshaw (D- Va.) says Democrats stand a better chance of stopping the legislation.
“You do have some senators who recognize their time is limited in terms of the floor time in the Senate and they’ve got a lot of big things that they feel like they need to get done,” Walkinshaw told The Informer. “Something like this uses up that time that they could be doing other things with. I’m hopeful that there will be a more judicious approach in the Senate.”
Earlier in the week, Walkinshaw joined a group of elected officials and activists in the launch of a national campaign centered on rebuffing Republican intrusion on D.C. home rule. The group— which includes members of Free DC, D.C. Councilmember Robert White (D-At large), Shadow Senator Ankit Jain, Shadow Representative Oye Owolewa, and Markus Batchelor of People for the American Way— converged on the House Triangle in Southeast on Tuesday evening.
As Frankie Seabron, program manager for Harriet’s Wildest Dreams, explained, the launch of this movement comes out of concern that, with the passage of the House Republican legislation, more Black lives would be at risk.
“Any infringement on home rule is an utter violation of democracy and our right to self-governance,” Seabron said on Tuesday evening.
Seabron said that Childs’ death and that of two other Black men, one during a police encounter and another while in custody, provide a glimpse into the perils that D.C. residents will continue to face.
“Even before Congress started to muddle or interfere in D.C., this city has never had a problem with locking people up,” Seabron said. “They damn sure haven’t had a problem with killing Black people. And now Congress wants to muddle what little transparency we have, what little accountability that we do get.”
At- large Councilmember White, a 2026 D.C. delegate candidate, said that it’s incumbent upon local leadership and activists to rail against what he described as nonsensical legislation.
“We got to keep fighting back if it’s what we believe in,” White said. “If we’re really about public safety, then we’re following the data and we’re following best practices, not the politics. Right now, politics is winning the day, and so that means we got to do more work, not less.”
Walkinshaw, who succeeded the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D) after winning a special election in September, said that he and other Democrats have been doing just that, encouraging their colleagues to hold the line.
But that’s not enough, he said.
“At the end of the day, Republicans have a majority here in the House,” Walkinshaw, a member of the House’s Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said on Tuesday evening. “So even if every single Democrat were to vote no, as I think the vast majority will, they could still pass the bill through the House.”
As local leaders continue to unite around protecting District home rule, at least one person— Felder— says that engagement with federally elected leaders, particularly Republicans, must be more consistent, not only in response to consequential bills.
“We have to constantly build relationships with those lawmakers across the aisle,” Felder told The Informer. “Constantly meeting, constantly sharing the work of the District…There shouldn’t be an angle. Maybe…the local government, city leaders should meet with our federal partners constantly, so we can really highlight the work that the District is doing.”
With Prosper DC Plan, Pinto Seeks More for D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation
On Monday, Ward 2 Councilmember Pinto introduced the Prosper DC Plan— a package that includes nearly two dozen pieces of legislation aimed at addressing District residents’ financial woes via: economic opportunity; youth development; business incentives; and affordable, healthy and accessible housing.
In the realm of youth development, at least one of the 23 bills in the Prosper DC Plan focuses on what Pinto calls the dearth in year-round programming. If passed, that bill, titled the Teen Center Establishment Amendment Act of 2025, would require the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) to launch and operate at least four comprehensive teen centers in each quadrant of the District.
“There’s been a lot of great progress over the last couple of years, but I do think it is a gap that we don’t have standalone teen centers,” Pinto told The Informer. “It’s something that we need to have a hearing on and we need to continue making the case and then funding these standalone centers.”
Earlier this year, amid an emergency juvenile curfew and federal surge, DPR conducted late-night summertime programming that exposed youth to go-go, gaming, and information about economic opportunities and the perils of substance use.
The events, called Late Night Hype, built upon similar programming that DPR conducted throughout the year, and more specifically while students are out of school for long periods of time.
While Pinto commended DPR for its efforts, she told The Informer more could be done.
“It’s not meeting the full need as expressed by…the very same people we’re trying to have benefit from the programs that we’re offering,” Pinto said.
DPR didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
During the earlier part of November, the D.C. Council approved an extension of the emergency juvenile curfew — even with concerns about local police post-surge collusion with federal agents. In the days leading up to that vote, the council’s Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, chaired by Pinto, conducted a public hearing where public witnesses spoke in favor of a curfew while emphasizing the need for additional programing and resources.
Other youth development-related bills in Pinto’ Prosper DC Plan support the creation of neighborhood-based youth villages, youths’ connections to employment and enrichment opportunities, the expansion of summer youth employment eligibility to 30 years old, employment vouchers to young parents, guidance around the use of artificial intelligence, and fewer barriers between youth and banks. While Pinto acknowledged the Oct. 30 committee hearing as an impetus for the legislation, she stressed that these bills have long been in the works.
“One of the biggest pieces of feedback that we’ve heard is [that] we need to make sure that there are spaces where young people can be safe and can enjoy themselves,” Pinto said. “All of those experiences and conversations have led us to…introducing this bill, which I think is going to be an important jumping off point to have these four team centers, one in each quadrant, and really built for and by teams so that our young people can have activities that really work for them.”
