Make Your Voice Heard! Are D.C. Agencies Meeting Your Needs? 

By Nick Adjami and Susie McClannahan
January 31, 2025

Now is your chance to tell D.C. Council about your experiences interacting with city agencies. Do you have a housing voucher or a Rapid Rehousing subsidy? Have you ever filed a housing discrimination complaint? You can share your experiences and any feedback on how D.C. government agencies can improve at the D.C. Council’s Performance Oversight Hearings. 

Every year, the D.C. Council holds Performance Oversight Hearings for all city agencies, allowing District residents and organizations to provide feedback on how well the agencies are meeting the community’s needs. The hearings are an important opportunity for people who have interacted with these agencies to share their experiences, positive or negative, so that D.C. Council can best perform its role of supervising them.  

Each year, the ERC testifies at Performance Oversight Hearings for multiple agencies that are relevant to our work. Last year, the ERC submitted testimony for the performance oversight hearings for the D.C. Office of Human Rights, D.C. Housing Authority, and D.C. Office of the Attorney General. The schedule for those hearings, as well as for the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development and Department of Human Services, is below. The full calendar of hearings for all D.C. government agencies is available on the D.C. Council website. 

How To Provide Feedback 

There are three different ways you can provide feedback: 

1. Speak at a hearing live and in-person 
2. Speak at a hearing live via video conference 
3. Type or upload written feedback in advance of the hearing 

If you plan to testify live at the hearing, you should check to see how much time you will be allowed to speak. If you cannot cover your full testimony in the time allowed, you can submit longer written testimony for the D.C. Council committee to consider and give a summary of your testimony live. 

You can find the abbreviated schedule of hearings below, with some common topics that you might want to address. 

Schedule and Topics 

Office of Human Rights
February 12, 9:30 AM – 1:30 PM 

The Office of Human Rights enforces local human rights laws, including the D.C. Human Rights Act. The agency investigates individual complaints of discrimination, including housing discrimination. If you live in the District and filed a housing discrimination complaint, you likely did so through the D.C. Office of Human Rights. You can provide feedback to D.C. Council about your experience with the complaint process. 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? Is there anything you would change about the process?  

Dept. of Housing and Community Development
February 13, 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM 

The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) is tasked with producing and preserving affordable housing across the District, as well as revitalizing neighborhoods and spurring economic development. DHCD administers programs like the Homeowner Assistance Fund, Home Purchase Assistance Program, and Inclusionary Zoning Affordable Housing Program. If you’ve applied for or participated in any of those programs, you can provide feedback as to how they worked for you. Is there anything you would change? What would make the program work better for you? 

Office of the Attorney General
February 25, 9:30 AM – 6:00 PM 

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) is the chief legal office for the District. It enforces the District’s laws, including the D.C. Human Rights Act, and protects the interests of D.C. residents. The ERC has worked closely with the OAG, especially as part of our efforts to combat rampant source of income discrimination in the District. You can comment on how well you think the office is protecting District residents’ interests.  

Dept. of Human Services and Interagency Council on Homelessness
(We will add a link to testify as soon as it is published)
March 5, 9:30 AM – 3:00 PM 

The Department of Human Services administers programs including the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) and Rapid Re-Housing programs for individuals and families. If you’ve applied for or participated in these programs, you can tell D.C. Council about your experience. Some suggested topics include: 

For individuals who have applied for or received ERAP: 

1. Did you apply for emergency rental assistance through ERAP in the last year? If so, was it easy to submit an application? If you experienced difficulties applying, what were they? 
2. If you applied for ERAP, was your application approved? How long did it take for your application to be processed? 
3. Is there anything you would change about the ERAP application process? 

For individuals who stayed at a shelter or participated in a Rapid Re-Housing program: 

1. Did you contact the Virginia Williams Family Resource Center or the D.C. shelter hotline in the last year? If so, what was your experience? 
2. If you stayed in a shelter in the last year, what was your experience like? How long did you stay there? When you left the shelter, did you have somewhere to go long-term? 
3. If you participated in a Rapid Re-Housing program, how long did you have a housing subsidy for?  
4. Did you have a case manager through Rapid Re-Housing? If so, what were your experiences like with them? 
5. If you exited Rapid Re-Housing within the past year, were you able to remain in stable housing? If not, how could the program be adjusted to improve outcomes? 

D.C. Housing Authority
March 6, 9:30 AM – 5:30 PM 

The D.C. Housing Authority is tasked with providing affordable housing to low-income families in the District and administers programs like public housing and the Housing Choice Voucher Program. If you live in public housing, have a Housing Choice Voucher, or are on the waitlist for either housing program, we encourage you to testify. Some suggested topics include: 

For anyone in a DCHA program or on the waiting list: 

1. Have you ever tried to contact DCHA? If so, what was your experience like? 
2. Have you ever requested a reasonable accommodation for your disability? Was the request approved by DCHA? How long did it take DCHA to review your request? 

For public housing residents: 

1. How long have you lived in public housing?  
2. What is the condition of your unit and building like? 
3. What is your experience with property management at the building? 

For individuals with housing vouchers: 

1. How long have you had your voucher for? 
2. What is it like searching for housing in D.C. with a housing voucher? 
3. If you’ve moved in the last year, how easy was it to find a property that was approved by DCHA? Did you have any difficulties with the RFTA package, rent reasonableness assessment, or property inspection? 

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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.