How to Share Your Perspective on Fair Housing to D.C. Council 

By Nick Adjami and Hana Cho
April 28, 2026

On Tuesday, May 12, 2026, D.C. Council will hold a Budget Oversight Hearing for the D.C. Office of Human Rights. The Office of Human Rights enforces local human rights laws, including the D.C. Human Rights Act, which is the primary local law protecting people from housing discrimination in the District. The agency investigates individual complaints of discrimination, including housing discrimination. The agency is certified as a FHAP by HUD, meaning that it “administer[s] fair housing laws that provide rights and remedies that are substantially equivalent to those provided by the Fair Housing Act.” If you live in the District and filed a housing discrimination complaint, you likely did so through the D.C. Office of Human Rights.

The upcoming hearing is an opportunity for District residents to share their fair housing perspectives and experiences and to weigh in on whether the District is meaningfully investing in fair housing programs and services to meet your community’s needs. If you filed a discrimination complaint with the D.C. Office of Human Rights, you can provide feedback to the D.C. Council about your experience with the administrative complaint process. Questions you may want to address include:

• Did you find it easy to file a complaint and go through the various steps of the complaint process?
• How long did it take for you to resolve your complaint?
• Does the D.C. Office of Human Rights have sufficient resources to meet your community’s fair housing needs? If not, what additional resources would help the D.C. Office of Human Rights better serve your fair housing needs?
• Have you participated in any education and outreach activities hosted by the D.C. Office of Human Rights? Are the agency’s current education and outreach activities sufficient to educate the public on their fair housing rights or is additional funding needed?

There are three different ways you can provide feedback:

• Speak at the hearing live and in-person
• Speak at the hearing live via video conference (Zoom)
• Type or upload written feedback. You can do this up to two weeks after the hearing date!

To submit written testimony or register to testify live on Tuesday, May 12, visit the Office of Human Rights Budget Oversight Hearing page on the D.C. Council website.

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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.