As part of its advocacy to protect housing choice in DC for all residents, WLC led a coalition of housing advocates urging Mayor Bowser to preserve public housing.  Their February 26, 2019 letter explains advocates’ opposition to “repositioning” public housing as described in DCHA Resolution 19-01—a euphemistic way of describing the DC Housing Authority’s (DCHA) plan to shift responsibility to make long overdue repairs to public housing to the private sector.  The letter asks the Mayor to allocate District funds, rather than rely on the privatization of public housing, to DCHA to make the necessary repairs to public housing units that have long been neglected.  While far from clear, DCHA’s proposal includes strategies that have been tried and failed elsewhere. The funding needs to be conditioned on enforceable measures to hold DCHA accountable, ensure the agency’s adherence to important principles such as the right of displaced public housing residents to return to their homes after repairs are made and, where demolition and rebuilding is required, a commitment to build while keeping reside nts on-site, as well as minimize tenant displacement and ensure meaningful protection of public housing residents’ rights.  DCHA has already announced its intention to privatize 2,400 units in the next 24 months, which as Resolution 19-01 indicates, will likely be followed by additional units deemed to be in “critical condition.”

The signatories to the letter are the Washington Lawyers’ Committee, Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, Bread for the City, the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, AARP Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and Valerie Schneider of Howard University’s School of Law Fair Housing Clinic.