Andrea Thomas: An economic storm is battering low-income DC families

In a period of just four years, DC families have gone from unprecedented levels of economic security — thanks to pandemic aid programs — to a point where thousands are overwhelmed by unaffordable rents and food prices, with few options for help. Meanwhile, the poorest DC families are not benefiting from DC’s growing economy. The hardships that are likely to come in the next year, including perhaps the highest level of evictions in a decade, will have lasting negative impacts.

It didn’t have to be that way. And it doesn’t have to be that way. DC leaders should commit now to creating an economic security agenda that can be adopted and funded next year.

Pandemic aid programs provided more than $28,000 between 2020 and 2022 to a typical low-income family of three via food benefits, economic stimulus payments, the expanded Child Tax Credit, and rental assistance. This aid “transformed what, without the programs, would have been a near-record surge in poverty in the COVID-19 recession into a record one-year overall poverty decline in 2020,” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

But pandemic aid to DC families dwindled to $400 in 2023 — with nothing since then. While it makes sense that pandemic aid would end, the dramatic change from one year to the next was like pulling a rug out from under thousands of DC families.  

DC leaders compounded this hardship through deep cuts in economic security programs in the city’s fiscal year 2025 budget. Emergency rental assistance, which was underfunded last year, was cut 60% this year, meaning that by our estimate 6,000 fewer families will get help to avoid eviction. We expect evictions in 2025 will reach a 10-year high. Beyond that, a DC add-on to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program offered $80 a month for a family of three in fiscal year 2024, but disappeared as of October, leaving many United Planning Organization customers and other residents with low incomes wondering how they will be able to buy enough food. Thousands of families with children are losing rental subsidies from the rapid rehousing program with no guarantee of replacement help. And due to budgeting discrepancies, a modest number of new housing vouchers for people experiencing homelessness — 620 — will be more like 330, at a time when homelessness has risen two years in a row.

This is happening at a time the DC economy is failing the same families. Poverty remained unchanged in 2023, leaving 26% of Black residents with less than $25,000 for a family of three. Meanwhile, the median white household income rose to $169,000.

The combined effect of rising rents, persistent poverty, and shrinking support for families is hardest on those directly impacted, but the repercussions reach us all. Many landlords are facing high rates of delinquent rents, with some nonprofit affordable housing providers now at risk of financial insolvency; oddly enough, the DC government’s “solution” to that so far has been to make it harder for residents to get emergency rental assistance. Children facing the trauma of deep poverty, evictions or hunger struggle to do well in school and are less likely to graduate.

In the short term, District leaders should closely monitor the demand for food assistance and the number of eviction filings, and Mayor Muriel Bowser and the DC Council should be prepared to respond to growing needs with supplementary budget actions. In the longer term, they should work together to develop an economic security agenda around housing and food, and to ensure residents facing financial crises have access to help to prevent them from sliding into homelessness or other serious harms.

Our entire city suffers when so many families are constantly in economic stress, making it harder to address pressing issues such as school truancy and public safety. 

One lesson of the pandemic is that we can improve economic security for our neighbors with the lowest incomes. If the federal government won’t do that, DC leaders must work to fill the gap.

Andrea Thomas is president and CEO of United Planning Organization, a DC nonprofit that helps residents lift themselves into economic security and reach their full potential.

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