The D.C. Council conducted an additional legislative meeting on Oct. 21 where they, among other things, approved the ceremonial naming of a street in honor of Marvin “Slush” Gross and conducted their final votes on a slew of legislation, including a bill that establishes the Youth Advisory Council on Climate Change and Environmental Conservation.
Other council business, however, represented a blast from the past.
Toward the end of its relatively short meeting, the council reignited a debate about the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA) before approving a reconsidered version of the Rebalancing Expectations for Neighbors, Tenants and Landlords Act (RENTAL Act) that narrows the scope of the law heralded by District renters as a viable path to homeownership.
This edition of The Collins Council Report— compiled and filed on this reporter’s birthday, of all days— includes information about that development, and looks back at a hearing out of a D.C. Council committee that oversees the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services.
TOPA Debate Rages On in RENTAL Act Reconsideration
When the D.C. Council approved the RENTAL Act on Sept. 17, it did so with an amendment that D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At large) successfully shepherded to exempt buildings with four or fewer units from the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA).
More than a month later, at the council’s Oct. 21 meeting, the legislative body revisited Bonds’ amendment in response to concerns that it would prevent the acquisition of a clear title during the closing of real property sales. Bonds’ amendment addressed that concern with a provision allowing attorneys to clear titles while, as she said, clarifying that corporations, not mom-and-pop landlords of two-to-four unit homes, would be subject to TOPA.
Ultimately, the majority of the council agreed. The legislative body, in a 10-3 vote, approved the reconsidered RENTAL Act, which, once again, included Bonds’ amendment.
D.C. Councilmembers Brianne Nadeau (D-Ward 1), Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4), and Trayon White (D-Ward 8) voted in opposition to the reconsidered legislation. Their votes came at the end of a fiery debate about the implications of Bonds’ amendment, which Nadeau called a fly-by-night attempt to disenfranchise more District tenants.
In making her case, Nadeau pointed to language she said gives corporations cover to circumvent TOPA laws.
“A letter from the Land Title Association on Oct. 9 recommended that you use the defined term entity in your amendment rather than business corporation,” Nadeau told Bonds on the dais, questioning why at-large councilmember didn’t acquiesce. “To quote that letter, ‘This would lessen the likelihood that a tenant would bring a lawsuit arguing that a property was owned in majority by a business corporation when, in fact, the property was owned by an LLC, and that LLC was, in turn, owned in majority by a business corporation.’”
Despite Nadeau’s concerns that Bonds’ amendment allows for foreign entities and corporations to benefit from the two-to-four unit TOPA exemption, the council approved Bonds’ amendment in a 9-4 vote.
Nadeau, Lewis George, Ward 8 D.C. Councilmember White, and D.C. Councilmember Matt Frumin (D-Ward 3) were the opposing votes.
Votes against an amendment by Lewis George experienced a different fate, with the same four council members voting in support and the majority of the legislative body opposing it. The amendment, had it passed, would’ve removed the two-to-four unit TOPA exemption from the RENTAL Act reconsideration.
Lewis George, speaking from the dais, didn’t mince words about what she saw as the immediate effects of the TOPA exemption.
“We know exactly who this change will hurt,” Lewis George, a TOPA beneficiary, said. “The working-class neighbors around RFK, specifically in Kingman Park, Lincoln Park, and pockets of Ward 5, 6, and 7, where the land values are about to skyrocket with the development of the stadium, and where displacement pressures are already mounting.”
TOPA, enacted in 1980, allows tenants the right of first refusal when their landlord attempts to sell their property to a third party. The law, which has been credited as a tool in decreasing housing inequity, has undergone changes over the last seven years. In 2018, the council exempted single-family homes from TOPA. In subsequent years, similar exemptions took form for newly constructed buildings.
Last month, Bonds, with the help of D.C. Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5), drafted her TOPA amendment on the dais, which she said protects small business landlords, and not corporations. In defending the amendment, once again, she told her council colleagues that the document culminates longtime engagement with mom-and-pop homeowners.
Actualizing this change, she said, puts the District on par with federal regulations while providing clarity to mom-and-pop homeowners and preventing interference in housing transactions.
“As many of my colleagues know, the local realty community has fought for this TOPA change since the single unit exemption became law in 2018,” Bonds said. “They have provided testimony and presentations during the…Advocacy Day and recent hearings on the Rental Act. This amendment is not last minute. It is the result of thoughtful consideration suited to the times before our city when focus is on making the District remain an attractive place for individuals of all means so that they can…continue to make this their home.”
In Discussion About Early Childhood Educator Pay, the Council Applies Pressure on Mayor Muriel Bowser
The D.C. Council unanimously approved the Early Childhood Educator Pay Scales Temporary Amendment Act of 2025, which— after a budget season that didn’t totally save the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund— reduces the minimum salary that child development facilities participating in the program must pay assistant and lead teachers.
D.C. Council members Christina Henderson (I-At large), Lewis George, and White of Ward 8, voted “present.”
Well before that vote, Henderson, D.C. Council Health Committee chairwoman and staunch advocate of early childhood educators, demanded that the legislative body explore other options to address the District’s precarious economic state.
“I understand that there are several financial pressures that the District is trying to address in this moment, and this legislation is an attempt to provide a responsible solution that will offer some sustainability for the future of our early educator ecosystem,” Henderson said on Tuesday during a Committee of the Whole hearing that preceded the council’s additional legislative meeting. “However, I am uneasy being asked to vote in favor of something like cutting educator salaries without knowing for certain that we have no other option available to us.”
The passage of this temporary legislation follows a budget season during which the council increased the Fiscal Year 2026 funding for the equity fund from what D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed, but stopped short of filling the program coffers throughout the rest of the District’s financial plan. This transpired as the council attempted to meet the needs of the program that currently has a waitlist.
Months later, Henderson continues to insist that Bowser honors a commitment to funding the Early Childhood Educator Equity Fund.
In the aftermath of the D.C. Office of the Chief Financial Officer’s most recent “higher-than-expected” revenue projection, she said that the Executive Office of the Mayor can make that happen.
“Now we have a revenue estimate that is showing, in theory, that we have additional funding available,” Henderson said in her remarks during the council’s Committee of the Whole meeting. “The responsibility, I believe, is now on the part of the executive to reprogram these excess funds, to fill what is a mere $9 million gap, before shifting that burden onto educators and their families.”
Three years ago, the council secured investments in the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund by increasing taxes on the District’s highest-earning residents. In the budget cycles that followed, Bowser warned the council against what she described as ballooning costs of publicly funded programs.
Even as they secured Fiscal Year 2026 funding for the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund, members of the Bowser administration once again hinted at an eventual capping of teachers’ salaries or teacher enrollment in the program.
On Tuesday, Lewis George, reportedly a 2026 mayoral contender, took aim at Bowser, who she said is shirking her responsibility to early childhood educators.
“It is awful that educators are the ones asked to take a pay cut because of the executive’s under-budgeting of this program and swiping the revenue from the council’s property tax increase that were statutorily designated for the pay equity program,” Lewis George said. “Early educators get no signing bonuses. They get no overtime. They get no hazard pay. They are not the problem. The problem is [an] unfortunate and unnecessary pattern of executive decision-making keeps rewarding the loudest voices while shortchanging the people who hold this city together.”
Toward the end of the council’s discussion on early childhood educator pay equity, D.C. Councilmember Anita Bonds (D-At large) posited a “holistic” solution that she said must be applied.
“I’d like for us to, as we are concerned about salaries today, to think a little bit more about the whole ecosystem of child care,” Bonds said. “When are we going to make it a formal part of our education system? It just seems to me it’s an opportunity for us to provide space in our schools and our churches, which would be free and available to the child care systems that we have in the city.”
For the time being, as the council, and the rest of the city for that matter, weathers the economic storm caused by the Trump administration and a continuing resolution advanced by congressional Republicans, D.C. Councilmember Wendell Felder (D-Ward 7) too stands among those adamant about adequately paying early childhood educators.
For Felder, who visited Educare DC in Northeast one day prior, it’s not just about constituents, but a special member of his household.
“I support the work of early childhood educators having the privilege of being a father of a beautiful 2-and-a-half-year-old,” Felder said on the dais. “I recognize the importance and the value that you all play in making sure that the foundation is there for our young folks…Setting the foundation and just having that experience just really motivated me and really taught me that we’re not for you guys. Our young folks will eventually turn into older folks. The principles and values that they learn in that environment really can set them up for success or failure.”
The Council’s Committee on Youth Affairs Continues to Address DYRS Overcrowding
Last week, the D.C. Council’s Committee on Youth Affairs conducted a hearing about overcrowding at the Youth Services Center (YSC), a local detention facility for young people who’ve either been committed to the D.C. Department of Youth and Rehabilitation Services (DYRS) or are undergoing adjudication.
As D.C. Councilmembers Parker and White of Ward 8 would come to find out from Tracy Velazquez, the overcrowding, in part, stems from the increase in Title 16 residents— juvenile offenders being charged as adults— at YSC.
“There are 63% more Title 16 youth in YSC now as compared to two years ago, and their average length of stay has ballooned 44% to 112 days,” said Valazquez, policy director at Council for Court Excellence, a local nonprofit focused on improving the justice system.
The prolonged presence of TItle 16 youth, in tandem with what many have criticized as a slow adjudication process, has increased the stay for several DYRS youth, further stretching the capacity of YSC facility and staff.
For instance, during the week of the Youth Affairs committee hearing, DYRS recorded twice as many admissions than was the case two years ago. They also, according to Velazquez, saw year-to-date admissions doubling and average stays increasing by 20%.
“In looking at who is using up the beds in YSC,” Velazquez said on Oct. 16. “ It’s clear YSC is becoming less and less a place for short-term stays for youth awaiting a delinquency adjudication, and more and more a facility for youth who have been committed to DYRS or who are being charged in the adult justice system.”
Overcrowding at YSC counts among a slew of problems DYRS has experienced in recent years. During the latter part of last year, the council approved the ROAD Act, which includes provisions requiring DYRS to develop and complete an individualized rehabilitation plan before a dispositional hearing, implement that plan within three days, and provide periodic updates.
The agency, per the ROAD Act, would also be charged with providing services to youth in residential placement within 30 days.
In his government witness testimony, DYRS Director Sam Abed said that his agency’s implementation of the ROAD Act would further stretch out an already thin staff. After some prodding, he spoke directly to the provision involving the provision of services within a 30-day period.
“I can tell you right now we don’t have the resources to do it in every case,” Abed told Parker. “So we are going to do the very best that we can with the resources that we have, and we will attempt to comply with every portion.”
Well before Abed’s exchange with Parker, the council member questioned, in his opening remarks, whether the Bowser administration has been exploring how best to mitigate the effects of overcrowding.
“While implementation of the ROAD Act remains a priority, other questions for the committee include, are there other strategies to accelerate placements?” Parker asked. “How do we expand in-District treatment and residential capacity? What must be done to strengthen staffing and infrastructure within the agency?”
Others who spoke at the Oct. 16 hearing included: Cesar Toledo, executive director of the Wanda Alston Foundation; Tayo Bell of the School Justice Project; and Tanya Martin of the Raise One, Teach One Delaneo Martin Foundation.
In her testimony, Martin said that DYRS overcrowding stems from District officials not taking a proactive approach in preventing crime and closing socioeconomic gaps. She questioned what would happen if District youth, like her children, received services long before they came into contact with the justice system.
“[The] majority of those kids over there could have been prevented from going there if they had services in place,” Martin said. “All your services that you provide in the District of Columbia, you have to be committed to DYRS, and that’s not fair.”
Martin was just as straightforward in her criticism of DYRS.
“The reason why they’re short of staff [is because] they can’t keep staff,” Martin said. “They can’t keep staff because you’re not placing our children right. My son had an IEP, and he didn’t get no services while he was committed in DYRS. He didn’t get the proper education. He got 30 minutes [of instruction].”