Ahead of budget proposal, Bowser touts planned initiatives ranging from workforce housing fund to free DC Circulator
In this week’s State of the District Address, Mayor Muriel Bowser managed to squeeze in multiple mentions of President Donald Trump and most of the Democrats looking to challenge him in 2020. She also referenced many of the myriad issues dominating DC politics — from affordable housing to gun violence — and offered a few miscellaneous budget commitments — from free DC Circulator rides to a tax break for low-income renters and homeowners.
Along the way, Bowser’s wide-ranging speech on Monday night touted economic development projects, the closure of the DC General homeless shelter, and growing momentum for statehood.
In one of the most notable policy initiatives, Bowser said her proposed 2020 budget will dedicate $55 million more toward affordable housing and seek to leverage the city’s spending by attracting roughly $225 million in private-sector funds to construct or preserve units. Additional funds would go toward workforce housing, for a total extra investment of around $400 million when counting public and private dollars.
The proposed funding increase comes as advocates press the Bowser administration to devote more money to affordable housing ahead of her budget unveiling on Wednesday morning.
The additional housing investment would stem partly from a new Workforce Housing Fund dedicated to building units for teachers, police officers, janitors and other working residents. That fund will use $20 million in public funding as seed money to generate about $180 million in projected financing from private sources, the mayor said. A Department of Housing and Community Development spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether DC residents who work elsewhere and DC workers who currently live in the suburbs would be eligible to seek housing through the program.
To fund the affordable housing initiatives, the mayor said she will seek additional revenue from higher taxes on commercial real estate transactions.
“These have been and continue to be very good times for Washington, DC. … We’re asking our commercial property owners to share some of the upside,” the mayor told residents and public officials during her address at the University of the District of Columbia, the same venue she chose for last year’s speech.
Bowser’s additional investments in affordable housing — a phrase that doesn’t include workforce housing — fall short of recommendations from advocates such as the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, a liberal think tank that recently said the annual commitment to the Housing Production Trust Fund should be doubled to $200 million.
Instead, Bowser will boost her administration’s yearly allocation from $100 million to $130 million, a 30 percent rise. Meanwhile, she plans to provide $15 million — up from last year’s $10 million — for the separate Housing Preservation Fund, which aims to preserve existing affordable rental homes; she said the investment will yield $45 million in private funding.
“This means, in the coming budget, we can and will invest nearly $200 million in the production and preservation of affordable housing,” Bowser said of the two funds.
Delving into national politics, Bowser took swipes at President Trump and praised several Democratic presidential contenders. She urged the DC Council to move the city’s 2020 Democratic primary from June 16 to sometime in April — echoing calls from other local party members for the District to maximize its influence in the primary contest, but siding against the Democratic State Committee’s recent vote in favor of a June 2 date.
Bowser said Trump failed to deliver on promises to invest in infrastructure, instead giving DC “tweets, parade plans and shutdowns.” In the face of anxiety over the Trump administration’s immigration policies, Bowser said she would more than double the current funding — to $2.5 million — for the Immigrant Justice Legal Services grant program, which assists legal organizations aiding immigrants.
She said she wants the federal government to build a new “world-class” hospital facility to replace the aging VA Medical Center, having made the same pitch a week ago during a meeting with the president at the White House to press for the filling of vacant judgeships. “A military parade will last a day, while a new veterans hospital would make a lasting change,” Bowser said.
At various points in the speech, enthusiastic crowd reactions — sometimes applause and sometimes boos — created a raucous setting. In several instances, residents and activists interrupted Bowser’s speech, at one point for two minutes, yelling “This is our home” and “Stop the war on the poor” before they were escorted out of UDC’s theater by security officers. Audience members — many of them Bowser administration officials — stood up and clapped to drown out the critics.
“We certainly also understand that many people aren’t enjoying the same prosperity that we want for our citizens,” Bowser said off script to a few residents who interrupted her. “And what we’re exactly talking about today is how we share that prosperity.”
Outside of UDC, over a dozen activists, including members from organizing group Empower DC, had gathered before her speech to protest the displacement of low-income residents in the city. They passed out fliers calling for the District to make $350 million in “urgent repairs” to public housing units — an issue that Bowser did not mention in her remarks.
Addressing the economic distress of Ward 8, Bowser highlighted her administration’s request for $60 million in tax incentives for the construction of a hotel, apartment building, and office and retail space along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE. Legislation for the Reunion Square deal was shelved in December after strong opposition from Ward 8 Council member Trayon White, who objected to its paucity of affordable housing.
Bowser also mentioned the recent opening of a new Busboys and Poets in Anacostia, where sit-down restaurants are scarce. She referenced the opening of the Entertainment and Sports Arena in Congress Heights; a highlight video screened before her speech noted that the project created 1,000 jobs.
Commenting on the 2020 presidential race, Bowser praised Democratic hopefuls Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sen. Kamala Harris of California and Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, mentioning all three twice in her speech. She also gave a shoutout to candidates Julian Castro, a former U.S. secretary of housing and urban development, and Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana.
“I know I’m biased as a fellow sitting mayor, but I quite like the idea of having a president who understands the importance of not just talking about infrastructure projects, but actually investing in them,” Bowser said of Buttigieg, who has made his mayoral chops a centerpiece of his run.
On education, Bowser said her budget will include $4.6 million for new technology resources in the District’s public schools — enough to provide each third-, sixth- and ninth-grader a new laptop or tablet. She called on Congress to fully fund the DC Tuition Assistance Grant Program, which provides up to $10,000 a year for District students studying at colleges and universities outside DC. The Trump administration zeroed out the program in its proposed 2020 federal budget; it also did so last year, although Congress restored the funding.
Bowser also said the District will begin a new effort to revitalize UDC’s Van Ness campus as a “student-centered” environment by funding the university’s acquisition of 4250 Connecticut Ave. NW — a retail and office building leased by the university after Fannie Mae’s departure last year when the mortgage lender opened its new downtown headquarters. “UDC should be the first-choice two-year and four-year institution for DC’s best and brightest,” she added.
In discussing crime and gun violence, Bowser reiterated her administration’s previous comments that the “frustratingly steady” number of shootings in recent years have turned more deadly. She also repeated her recent pledge to fund a 4,000-officer police force, including an “innovative new partnership between MPD and UDC” that she did not detail. But Bowser also vowed to make significant investments in programs to “prevent violence, reduce recidivism and address trauma.”
“We know that to end this violence we have to be good at both policing and healing,” she said.
Bowser also used her speech to advocate for the property tax break for homeowners proposed by Ward 4 Council member Brandon Todd. “With higher property values come higher property taxes,” she said, adding: “You know how the saying goes: I’m house-rich, but cash-poor.”
In the face of criticism that increasing the homestead exemption wouldn’t help those most in need of assistance, the DC Council earlier this month deferred action on Todd’s bill, referring the matter back to the Finance and Revenue Committee for further review. Backers such as Bowser describe the tax relief as helping all owner-occupants — with the benefits more noticeable for residents of more modest homes — but several legislators joined liberal activists in dismissing the idea as a giveaway to wealthier households.
Bowser said the $47 million revenue loss from the partial federal government shutdown prevented her from including the change in the 2020 budget, but suggested she will seek to fund it in the future. In the meantime, Bowser said that — at the urging of Ward 2 Council member Jack Evans — she will expand a tax credit called Schedule H, which helps lower-income renters and homeowners.
Bowser also announced that she will propose $122 million in funding for the K Street Transitway. The project envisions rebuilding K Street NW with center bus lanes. The mayor also announced the DC Circulator bus will be permanently free, after going fareless in February and this month.
“Over these past few weeks, workers at hotels, restaurants and shops have stopped me and told me how much they like the free Circulator,” Bowser said. “We may not think about it, because it’s just $1 each way, $2 a day, but for a working person it adds up. And so we went back to our budget books to see what else we could do.”
This post has been updated to correct the reference to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.
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