jonetta rose barras: DC Mayor Muriel Bowser’s third time around has yet to become the charm

Muriel Bowser is only the second person in DC’s modern history of political quasi-independence to be thrice elected as mayor. The other was Marion Barry.

His third term was disastrous, misdirected by the increasingly prominent role of drugs and alcohol in his life. Some may have characterized his addiction as a personal problem. However, it aggravated his administration’s mismanagement of the government and increasingly put critical services to poor and working-class residents at risk. Over time, as many as five agencies were placed under court-appointed monitors or receivers.

Bowser isn’t struggling with such an issue. Still, her third term has been calamitous. Thus far, DC’s most vulnerable residents have been as neglected or abused as they were 34 years ago by Barry’s administration. 

Children in DC’s poorest neighborhoods continue to receive a substandard public education, despite a $2 billion budget allocation. In nearly every ward there are residents who fear losing their lives in the city’s unrelenting violence, fueled in no small measure by fentanyl and illegal guns. Their worries are exacerbated by the apparent inability of the Office of Unified Communications to properly and swiftly dispatch the 911 calls it receives — or even sometimes to answer them. Often government-financed health care doesn’t adequately serve the needs of those suffering mental health disorders or chronic diseases.

That’s just the short list of the Bowser administration’s inadequacies.

The mayor and her minions boast about their handling of housing and homeownership issues. That’s all political theater, intended to distract the public from the string of debacles affecting everything from rental vouchers to public housing and the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD). Recent news reports about the city’s Home Purchase Assistance Program (HPAP) serve as indisputable evidence.

In October 2022, Bowser announced she was setting a goal of adding 20,000 Blacks to DC’s list of homeowners by 2030. Administration officials asserted they were dedicated to closing a racial gap centuries in the making — just 34% of African American DC residents owned homes, compared with 49% of whites.

Bowser promised to increase HPAP loan amounts from $80,000 to $202,000.

As the saying goes, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Bowser failed to budget sufficient funds for the city’s massive homeownership campaign — a campaign she initiated. Consequently, by June HPAP was out of money. The administration promised to reopen the program at the start of the new fiscal year, which was Oct. 1.

When it did so around Oct. 10, as WAMU/DCist reporter Morgan Baskin first reported on social media, the rules had been changed. Last week, the Washington Post recounted the adverse impact on people most in need of assistance via HPAP. It’s clear these little-known revisions have left an untold number of low-income, senior or disabled residents either no longer eligible for the program or forced to accept smaller loan amounts, which in some instances is like having no loan at all.

How did that happen? Didn’t anyone at the DHCD, which operates the program, conduct a fiscal analysis back in 2022? Shouldn’t someone have considered how such a large increase in the loan amount might affect the overall viability of the program?

I sent a note to DHCD Director Colleen Green. Pamela Hillsman, a spokesperson, replied for the agency. She said in fiscal year 2023 the agency spent more than $70 million on HPAP, which represents a 150% increase over the initial budget allocation.

If that is not evidence of mismanagement, I don’t know what is.

Here’s how the agency tried to spin it: “DHCD utilized all available sources of funding to continue to meet the demand of HPAP, and communications were shared as soon as possible once all funds were allocated and once program changes were implemented,” Hillsman wrote, adding that agency officials will “monitor program and market trends” and “work closely with stakeholders throughout the community to ensure that the program continues to meet its mission and the needs of HPAP homebuyers.”

Hillsman was unable to provide me with a copy of the new policy. She said the agency didn’t have enough time to gather the information I requested given its review and approval process when dealing with the media.

However, she explained that the new rules prohibit HPAP loans from exceeding 30% of the purchase price of the property and HPAP loans cannot be more than the first trust mortgage. She failed to provide me with the number of applicants adversely affected by that change, arguing that the “adjusted loan-to-value does not directly affect an applicant’s eligibility for HPAP.”

Here’s the caveat, however: “It is understood that the adjustments can affect the purchase price of a home that an applicant may wish to purchase.” 

So, there were residents ready to buy a home who were no longer able to do so because the HPAP loan never materialized as promised. 

“HPAP is only one part of the homebuying process, and many details, including why an applicant may or may not purchase a home, are external to the program,” added Hillsman.

That kind of comment exposes the disregard the Bowser administration has for residents, including for their common sense.

If this were the first time DHCD had mismanaged HPAP or the Housing Production Trust Fund — another program under its auspices — the agency might be forgiven for its mistakes. Except, it has proved to be a bumbling bureaucracy subsidizing questionable developers, who in multiple instances have failed to pay back their government loans while facilitating the destruction of homeownership dreams for which many low-income or working-class Blacks worked to realize.

Call DHCD the hope shredder.

Earlier this year, when the DC Council, encouraged by at-large member Robert White, tried to rescind a large citywide rent increase from taking effect, Green unconvincingly asserted that she couldn’t spare even one staffer to help process the associated paperwork. Fortunately, legislators moved forward to cap increases in rent-stabilized buildings for 2023 at 6% and a cumulative 12% for the next two years.

White, who chairs the council’s Committee on Housing, told me via email that he is “seeing a trend across multiple agencies … of poor financial planning which is resulting in massive downstream financial problems.”

He lamented the multiple leadership transitions at DHCD but said he was “encouraged by Director Green’s experience and those she has recently brought in as senior management staff.”

“They are finding their stride, and I am monitoring those transitions closely, particularly in moments of obvious concern, like the HPAP policy changes,” continued White. “I also realize Director Green serves at the pleasure of the mayor and must follow her policy direction.” 

That last bit may be an early salvo in a political battle that could erupt in 2026, if Bowser has the audacity to seek a fourth term. Sources have told me White is planning to run. He ran unsuccessfully last year.

As for HPAP, White said that unless Bowser “chooses to revert the new restrictions, legislation is the best course of action Council can take to counteract her decision.” He talked of possibly grandfathering in applicants who had approved loans.

That’s a short-term fix that doesn’t alter this fact: Bowser is mostly performing old tricks for a new audience. I have been around long enough to have seen this same act multiple times. 

Each election cycle she makes some attention-generating pledge that frequently is altered after the votes are counted. The promised infusion of money for first-time homebuyers came in the middle of a campaign where she worried about the dependability of her support from Black voters, particularly low-income residents, many living east of the Anacostia River, who seemed more aligned with White. 

Bowser has learned that promising to give away money is a powerful generator of goodwill — never mind that it often is money the city doesn’t have or it’s a program to which she isn’t fully committed. 

Back in 2014, it wasn’t money, but legislation aimed to seduce the same group of voters to help launch her mayoral career. Bowser, then the Ward 4 councilmember, introduced a bill to prevent the developer of Portner Place apartments at 14th and U streets NW from creating a separate entrance for low-income residents whose rents would be subsidized. Tenants thought she was on their side. They eventually learned, albeit after the election, that she had deliberately routed her proposal as an amendment to the city’s Human Rights Act, knowing it would never see the light of day.

Still, that maneuver won Bowser support from low-income Black voters ahead of her general election contest against independent David Catania. The rest is history.

In political campaigns very little is new, including betraying vulnerable citizens who hope that promises made will be delivered. Most often they aren’t. 

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jonetta rose barras is an author and DC-based freelance journalist, covering national and local issues. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.