Throughout this election cycle, the two top contenders — former Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie and Councilmember Janeese Lewis George — have debated who represents the “real D.C.”
It’s an important conversation. Identity, belonging, and community matter in a city like ours.
But for many Washingtonians, the more immediate question is simpler. Does the city actually work for all residents?
Because right now, too often, it doesn’t.
In Washington, D.C., you can qualify for food assistance and still wait months to receive it. Last year, the District processed SNAP applications on time just 57 percent of the time. In many other states, that number is closer to 90 percent.
As representatives on the State Board of Education for Ward 2 and Ward 7, we see different parts of the city every day. But when it comes to how residents experience government systems, the pattern is more similar than it should be.
That gap isn’t about identity or values. It’s about whether the system delivers.
For many residents, especially those with low incomes, the most expensive thing you can be in this city is poor. Not because support does not exist, but because accessing it requires time that many people do not have.
You submit an application. Then you submit it again somewhere else. You upload documents, then get asked for them again. You call one office and get sent to another. You wait, follow up, and often start over.
Even when you do everything right, the system doesn’t always respond on time.
The details vary across neighborhoods. In some parts of the city, the friction shows up as delays and confusion. In others, it shows up as missed benefits or opportunities that never materialize. The same is true for business owners trying to navigate paperwork to become a Certified Business Enterprise, or for homeowners trying to complete basic renovations and running into permitting delays.
But the underlying problem is the same. Systems that don’t connect, and no clear ownership of making them work together.
You can see it in the details. Applications sit too long before they are processed. For families waiting on benefits they already qualify for, the issue is not just funding. It is whether programs are implemented effectively.
The same documents get requested across multiple programs, even when agencies already have the information.
And when something goes wrong, it is not always clear why. Audits have found cases where required notices were not consistently sent and eligibility records were not always accurate, leaving residents trying to fix a system that does not reflect their situation.
These issues are not going away. In some cases, they are about to get worse.
Recent federal policy changes will expand work and reporting requirements for programs like SNAP and Medicaid, requiring many residents to document ongoing work or community engagement to maintain benefits.
On paper, these policies are about accountability. In practice, they increase the amount of documentation and verification required to stay enrolled.
In a system that already struggles with timing and coordination, more reporting means more opportunities for something to break. And when something breaks, people lose access.
D.C. is not the only place dealing with these challenges. But some states have made different choices about how their systems function.
In those places, residents can apply for multiple programs through a single process. They can check their status without calling an office. They can see what documents are missing and what happens next.
Not because those states care more, but because they have done the work to make their systems function together.
We do not need to start from scratch. There are practical steps we can take right now.
We can use the data we already have, so people do not have to submit the same information over and over. We can expand automatic enrollment where it makes sense. We can make application status visible so people are not left guessing.
This pattern shows up across the city.
We hear it from families in Ward 7 trying to navigate multiple agencies just to secure basic support. We hear it from residents and small business owners in Ward 2 who run into the same fragmentation when dealing with permits, certifications, or city services.
Different experiences, but the same underlying problem.
