jonetta rose barras: Is Bowser’s new affordable housing legislation really needed in DC?

Ecosystem. 

That was the word that drew me into Mayor Muriel Bowser’s recent discussion about the “Rebalancing Expectations for Neighbors, Tenants and Landlords (RENTAL) Act.” Her administration’s legislative proposal, as presented last week, would principally adjust procedures and timelines for evictions triggered by nonpayment of rent, “restore” the city’s ability to purchase vacant or troubled properties, remove from certain renters the rights currently available to them under the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), and shield the District government from liability related to shoddy construction performed by developers it may have supported through grants or loans, among other things. 

The latter carve-out is specifically directed at low-income and working-class residents whose only sin seven years ago was to have the dream of homeownership and to believe in the promises made by DC through its Home Purchase Assistance Program. After spending their hard-earned money for a down payment, those residents, many of them Black women, were sold units at 1262 Talbert St. SE that should never have passed the city’s inspection process. Several filed a lawsuit.

District officials promised to make them whole. It hasn’t. Now it’s running for cover with an anti-liability clause in a bill the mayor has claimed will benefit residents as she attempts to flaunt her affordable housing creds.

“The Rental Act seems to be consistent with the District priorities, which, in my opinion, are not in the best interest of residents,” attorney LaRuby May told me via email. She and her firm, May Jung Personal Injury Lawyers, have been representing several of the women homeowners. May wrote that they are “deep in litigation” in their DC Superior Court and DC Court of Appeals cases.

Interestingly, Bowser made no reference to the women being betrayed by their own government when she asserted during her press conference last week that “our collective citywide commitment to affordable housing has made DC a national model for success.”

She offered, however, that the city’s “hard-won progress is at risk. We now must act with similar urgency to protect the affordable housing that is home to nearly 100,000 Washingtonians and ensure our ability to build more housing.”

“We do that by rebalancing our housing ecosystem and leveraging the right tools, the right investments, and the right policies to meet this moment,” Bowser added. The bill must be approved and funded by the DC Council before it can become law and implemented.

Unsurprisingly, it has been praised by landlords, contractors, developers and organizations like the DC Building Industry Association, whose chief executive officer, Liz DeBarros, in a prepared statement, called the Rental Act a “critical step toward stabilizing DC’s Housing market at a time when affordability and investment are both under significant pressure.” 

However, Johanna Shreve, the DC government’s chief tenant advocate, told me earlier this week that “we’re studying the bill.”

Gabriel Shoglow-Rubenstein, spokesperson for Attorney General Brian Schwalb, said “no comment” to my email request for a response to the mayor’s legislation. That seemed odd since last month Schwalb announced the creation of a “Housing Protection and Affordability Initiative,” creating a new senior counsel position while shifting three other lawyers to assist with that focus.

It appears Bowser and her team — Nina Albert, deputy mayor for planning and economic development, and Colleen Green, director of the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) — failed to reach out to tenants, advocates and even elected officials, many of whom raised questions about current efforts by the mayor and the damage that could be caused by changes to TOPA.

Even now, there’s no copy of the legislative text posted with Bowser’s press release and PowerPoint overview. It also wasn’t available on the DC Council’s legislative website as of Friday morning, even though Bowser last week said she hoped the council would at least hold a public hearing on her bill prior to the submission of her proposed fiscal year 2026 budget in early April.

Daniel del Pielago, housing director for Empower DC, told me during an interview earlier this week that the legislation “seemed rushed” and that it “really is favoring landlords and developers.” He said it doesn’t address what he sees as the underlying issue, which is “exorbitant rents and low wages and how do we deal with that.”

“It misses the mark and potentially leaves a lot of District residents literally out in the cold,” added del Pielago, noting that he is particularly concerned that Bowser’s proposal would stymie tenant representation on the public housing board by extending the Stabilization and Reform Board that was supposed to be temporary.

“Why does the legislation not include mandatory reforms to Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) recommended by the DC auditor?” asked Meg Maguire, chair of the NW Opportunity Partners Community Development Corporation, which has advocated for affordable housing in the city, particularly in Ward 3.

“A sloppily administered IZ program is operating without data, failing to meet deadlines, failing to ensure landlord compliance, and failing to recertify income eligibility. Who benefits from IZ — longtime DC residents or primarily newcomers? Why is it taking so long to fill units?  

“Failures in IZ do not instill confidence that TOPA ‘reforms’ would be any better administered,” said Maguire.

By most definitions, an ecosystem recognizes the interconnectedness or interdependence of a group of organisms or people. If a real system of affordable housing is to be created and preserved, it must address the production or maintenance of rental units and buildings. It also has to incorporate a healthy volume of single-family homes, and the abundance of local businesses that serve both populations. We should be able to expect policies and programs to be implemented and leveraged to benefit the entire city.

While Bowser and others threw around the word ecosystem, its applicability here in DC is, in fact, a figment of the executive’s imagination. 

The District may have affordable housing. It lacks a system — to say nothing of an affordable housing ecosystem.

Since the creation of the Housing Production Trust Fund, the District has spent billions of dollars without consistent planning and without sufficient consideration of the impacts on communities or the people who live in those communities. In many cases, officials have been driven by political considerations, including their own personal political survival. Further, seemingly each time Bowser and her team have been challenged to think and operate holistically, they have ignored or dismissed such appeals.

Consider, for example, when Ward 3 Councilmember Matt Frumin urged Bowser in 2023 to purchase the Intelsat site in Upper Northwest near the University of the District of Columbia. The 13 acres could have brought affordable workforce housing and additional academic facilities to that community. Despite a petition with hundreds of residents’ signatures, Bowser turned a blind eye. Before that she ignored entreaties from citizens for the city to bid on the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel that was on the auction block for $140 million, a modest sum given the site’s size and amenity-laden location. Advocates and others believed the site could become a mixed complex of rentals and condominiums that included units for families with three or more children.

If Bowser had embraced such innovation or if her administration had taken a thoughtful rather than scattered approach to the expansion of affordable housing in the city, considering the personality and needs of each community rather than convenience or the desires of developers, she probably could have legitimately used the word ecosystem. However, in practical application, her legislation erodes the promise of any such achievement.

In fairness, it is reasonable to permanently restore pre-pandemic eviction protocols, as the DC Council for the most part did last fall on a temporary basis. Landlords, especially those with a small number of rental units, have suffered economic hardships that have resulted in delayed maintenance, which has decreased the value of their properties while eroding the living conditions for tenants in those buildings. Additionally, some renters have exploited the protections that were provided during the COVID-19 pandemic; one such abuse involves voucher holders who have deliberately stopped paying their mandated portions of the rent. A list maintained by the Office of the Tenant Advocate provides a glimpse of the scope of the problem.

The council will have to consider how to provide much-needed relief to those business owners while anticipating the pressure on the court system and ensuring that residents with documented economic problems are provided with resources to help mitigate the changes.

Del Pielago argued that the mayor is “trying to ram down laws that really aren’t going to help residents” and that “the council can’t make the court change its rules.” 

But Bowser’s proposal doesn’t stop there. With her modifications to the District’s landmark TOPA law, she would handicap the residents of market-rate buildings where more than 51% of units are above 80% of the median family income. These are renters with economic fluidity that would allow them to effectively use their TOPA rights, possibly converting their buildings to cooperatives or condominiums and creating a more stable housing environment.

According to DHCD’s website, TOPA “stabilizes city neighborhoods, combats urban displacement and helps tenants become homeowners.” It was initially created under the 1980 Rental Housing Conversion and Sales Act. 

Currently, when a multifamily rental building is placed on the market for sale, tenants have the right of first refusal. Sometimes low-income or working-class renters use this right to negotiate an agreement with a corporation or developer interested in purchasing the building. The tenants essentially agree to a sale with a company willing to make desired improvements to their building. That process can take several months.

Of course, corporations and developers would prefer the ability to make an offer, have it accepted, and then take control of the property. Forget about what residents may want, even if some of them have lived in their building for 20 or 30 years.

A spokesperson for Deputy Mayor Albert said that renters in market-rate apartments have tended to take buyouts rather than exercise their TOPA rights. Except that those buyouts wouldn’t be available were it not for those TOPA rights. Consequently, under Bowser’s proposed legislation, the city would be denying them leverage in a critical transaction that could affect the quality of their future housing. 

What’s more, said Maguire, decision-makers lacks key data about DC’s rental housing that should inform any policy changes: The city still hasn’t produced the long-delayed “database on buildings under rent stabilization, so how do we know the basic facts about ‘naturally occurring’ [affordable] housing and who lives there?” 

“The legislation seriously limits the opportunity for residents to purchase their buildings and will accelerate private corporate acquisition of buildings that are serving people of limited means,” Maguire added.

At the mayor’s press conference, she and her team argued mostly that the proposed Rental Act will “result in fewer unintended consequences” and “restore investor confidence and increase investments in multi-family housing.”

In other words, Bowser doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that her plan would make a number of tenants vulnerable to the system, rather than fueling their economic advancement and improved living conditions as homeowners. However, wasn’t it just a few years ago that she declared Black homeownership one of her administration’s key priorities?

Speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth isn’t easy. Still, some politicians have made an art of it.

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