“Combat the Tide of Worsening Segregation”: ERC Comments on District’s Annual Action Plan
By Nick Adjami and Susie McClannahan
August 29, 2024
Affordable Housing in D.C.
The cost of housing in D.C. has skyrocketed in recent years, putting a serious burden on low-income residents and families. More than ten percent of D.C. residents are facing housing insecurity. In 2019, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser launched a campaign to produce 36,000 housing units by 2025, including at least 12,000 affordable units, with the goal of lowering housing costs.
The District met its 36,000 unit goal in July of 2024, and is on track to meet the affordable housing goal next year. However, those affordable units are not distributed equally throughout the city.
The vast majority of existing and new affordable housing units are located in the District’s Southwest and Southeast quadrants. Meanwhile, the Northwest quadrant is well below its goal. Rock Creek West, a desirable and wealthy Northwest neighborhood, has fewer than 500 affordable units, or approximately one percent of the District’s affordable housing supply.
The distribution of affordable housing is a racial equity issue. Much of the District’s affordable housing is located in Racially or Ethnically Concentrated Areas of Poverty (RECAPs). Most RECAPs in D.C. are located in the Southeast quadrant, and almost 95 percent of residents are Black. Affordable housing must be abundant and fairly distributed so that low-income D.C. residents have meaningful choices regarding where they live. D.C. must facilitate these opportunities in order to chip away at the entrenched racial segregation that scars the city.
What Is an Annual Action Plan?
Every five years, D.C. writes a Consolidated Plan detailing the city’s community development priorities and multi-year goals. The Plan is based on an assessment of housing and community development needs, an analysis of housing and economic market conditions, and available resources.
On a year-to-year basis, D.C. creates Annual Action Plans charting the city’s progress toward the goals identified in the Consolidated Plan. These annual plans are required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and detail more specifically the activities the city will undertake to meet its goals and the resources it will use to do so.
The District released its draft Annual Action Plan for fiscal year 2025 in July of 2024. With this document, city leaders have the potential to address the city’s segregation problem and improve housing opportunities for low-income residents.
ERC Analysis of the Draft Plan
As a leading fair housing organization in the D.C. region, the Equal Rights Center (ERC) submitted comments on the draft plan, noting where leaders must do more to meet District residents’ housing needs. The comments touched on the following points:
1. Affordable housing
As mentioned, affordable housing in D.C. is not equitably distributed, but some progress has been made. For example, the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) acquired the Aston Building in Foggy Bottom and will soon open a “first of its kind” facility for unhoused individuals. Foggy Bottom is a desirable neighborhood in the city’s Northwest quadrant and a small but vocal group of neighborhood residents fought against the project, citing “pernicious economic effects”. The ERC commends DHCD’s perseverance against those narrow-minded concerns and encourages the city to pursue more such efforts to break down the city’s race and class divides.
2. Rapid Rehousing
In its comments, the ERC condemned a decision made by the D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS) to terminate nearly 2,000 households from the Rapid Rehousing (RRH) program who have been deemed eligible for permanent vouchers. To terminate these families from the program is to put them at immediate risk of homelessness. This too is a racial equity issue, as 97 percent of families in the program are Black. The ERC signed an open letter to the Mayor urging her to halt the termination of these families from RRH until they receive permanent housing vouchers.
3. Public housing
Finally, ERC urged the D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA) to rehabilitate – not redevelop – existing public housing units, which have fallen into disrepair due to the agency’s neglect. The availability and quality of public housing is a racial equity issue: Black individuals represent 48 percent of the city’s overall population, but 97 percent of public housing residents. The redevelopment and privatization of public housing would reduce options for low-income families in D.C. and threatens to displace existing public housing residents, especially larger families.
These points are key to ensuring D.C. is able to effectively promote affordable housing, improve racial equity, and meet its obligation to affirmatively further fair housing. You can read the ERC’s full comments here.
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The Equal Rights Center (ERC) — a national non-profit organization — 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.
