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The Regional Fair Housing Plan Is Here! Submit a Comment.

By Nick Adjami
February 2, 2023

Help advance fair housing! Local jurisdictions throughout the Greater Washington, DC region have joined forces to create a Regional Fair Housing Plan meant to identify barriers to fair housing choice and strategies for overcoming those barriers. On Tuesday, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) released the draft plan, and will be accepting comments through March 31, 2023.

Graphic of people silhouetted against a cityscape. Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments logo. Text reads: We want to hear from you. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and eight local governments invite you to provide input to the regional fair housing plan that will shape the future of housing in the region. The draft plan has regional and local goals and actions that will: Increase access to housing, Increase access to all neighborhoods, Increase fair housing enforcement, Remove barriers to housing choice, Increase housing choice for persons with disabilities.

In developing the draft plan, MWCOG released a survey asking residents about their experiences with affordable housing and discrimination. Nearly 3,000 people responded, with 83.6 percent saying safe, affordable housing was hard to find. 13 percent reported having experienced housing discrimination. It is crucial that community members who have faced these problems participate in the public comment process for the plan. This process allows individuals and organizations to provide feedback and suggest improvements before the plan is finalized. Once finalized, the plan will serve as a blueprint for local governments as they try to promote affordable, fair, and integrated housing.

The draft plan is available in English, Spanish, French, Korean, Amharic, and Chinese. Once you’ve reviewed it, you are encouraged to submit a comment with your feedback.

Participating local governments include the District of Columbia; Montgomery County and the City of Gaithersburg in Maryland; Arlington County, Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Prince William County, and the City of Alexandria in Virginia.

If you have questions or need to request an accommodation, call 202-962-3794 or 202-962-3213 TDD, or email fairhousing@mwcog.org.

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The ERC is a civil rights organization that identifies and seeks to eliminate unlawful and unfair discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations in its home community of Greater Washington DC and nationwide. The ERC’s core strategy for identifying unlawful and unfair discrimination is civil rights testing. When the ERC identifies discrimination, it seeks to eliminate it through the use of testing data to educate the public and business community, support policy advocacy, conduct compliance testing and training, and, if necessary, take enforcement action. For more information, please visit www.equalrightscenter.org

The work that provided the basis for this publication was supported by funding under a grant with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The substance and findings of the work are dedicated to the public. The author and publisher are solely responsible for the accuracy of the statements and interpretations contained in this publication. Such interpretations do not necessarily reflect the views of the Federal Government.

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