How to fix D.C.'s housing crisis — and ensure rent is paid

Washington Post

a day ago

Courtney Battle is executive director of the Housing&.
Washington is weathering a housing crisis. The capital city has one of the highest mountains of unpaid rent in the country: $147 million is predicted to go unpaid in 2025 alone, which would represent a 1,236 percent increase since 2020. And that amount continues to climb. Combined with lingering financial deficits exacerbated by pandemic-era moratoriums on eviction, the District fears that much of its affordable housing — more than 20,000 units of which are already at risk of foreclosure — might soon disappear.
Yet Washington should be well-suited to mitigate both problems. Affordable housing in D.C. is legally required to be rented at below-market rates. And the city has consistently funded its affordable housing war chest, the Housing Production Trust Fund, which provides low-interest loans to subsidize affordable housing. So why is this market continuing to crumble — and why are renters struggling so badly to pay rent?
The likely, yet largely ignored, answer: Washington's flawed housing court and policies. Permits for new multifamily housing in the District are down to their lowest rates in over a decade, owing in part to a lethargic housing court and regulations that increase uncertainty in the market. The court has yet to recover from the pandemic: Landlord-tenant cases in D.C. regularly take over a year to conclude, up from three to five months before the pandemic. The result is an ever-increasing backlog of more than 6,000 cases.
This is more than a resource issue: It's a question of policy. Under D.C. law, judges don't have discretion to decide whether a technical issue warrants dismissal in some cases, worsening the backlog. Waiting periods for hearings are weeks slower than in neighboring states. Notice procedures for evictions are similarly more cumbersome, requiring process servers instead of notice through the mail or posting on the door. These policy obstacles delay the resolution of housing disputes, in turn delaying rent payment.
Washington's reputation of high rent delinquencies has predictably scared away business. WinnCompanies, a property manager, told the D.C. Council's housing committee that only 2 percent of its units nationwide are in D.C., but they account for 28 percent of its unpaid rent. Some property management companies have even tried to reduce this mass of unpaid rent through rent-forgiveness programs. One large provider of affordable units in the region offered its tenants a clean slate: Start paying going forward, and it will clear away your debt. Despite this method of last resort working elsewhere, less than 5 percent of D.C. tenants accepted the offer.
Without any kind of a stick, even the largest carrots do not work. This is why Washington must revamp its housing policy to curb rent nonpayment and incentivize housing development. Luckily, this opportunity is on the table: The council is set to vote on Democratic Mayor Muriel E. Bowser's Rental Act, which, if passed, would rebalance D.C.'s housing ecosystem.
First, the bill would make the housing court more efficient. It would provide judges with more discretion so that cases do not have to be refiled repeatedly. It also would shorten the notice period for evictions and make this process less burdensome. These changes would help reduce the time it takes for a case to move through housing court.
Second, the bill would reform the District's Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which gives tenants the chance to buy their apartment building when it goes up for sale or transfer their purchase rights to outside housing providers. Although law has provided leverage to tenants to improve their buildings upon sale, its rigidity dissuades investment in new affordable and market-rate housing projects.
This opportunity to purchase is hardly ever used by tenants in new buildings. Nintey-six percent of tenant association formations under the purchasing law occurred in properties built before 1978. New buildings tend to be more expensive and have wealthier tenants, therefore eliminating the need for an act that prevents displacement. The bill would exempt buildings less than 25 years old as well as those that already have affordability requirements, expanding housing in D.C. without compromising the ability of tenants at risk of displacement to benefit from the sale of their building.
To be clear, D.C.'s affording housing crisis primarily disadvantages tenants. The foreclosure of an affordable property almost always results in the end of that building's legal requirement to maintain affordability. Affordable housing providers who do manage to stay afloat are often forced to reallocate the cash flow that would've been used to maintain and improve buildings toward paying the building's mortgage , which is not being covered by the expected rent. This all results in higher rents and poorer living conditions for vulnerable residents.
We cannot continue to ignore Washington's mounting housing crisis. To both reduce rental delinquencies and preserve affordable housing in D.C., the city must fix its broken housing policies.