DC draws on resident input for multiyear plan to overcome barriers to fair housing

Input from residents is set to play a key role in a report on the state of fair housing in the District being compiled in order to comply with federal mandates that local governments combat historical patterns of segregation and crack down on illegal discrimination.

The DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) held meetings across the city in late April and early May where community members shared their experiences and concerns surrounding affordability, legal protections for renters, and similar issues. Another meeting is scheduled for tonight from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in Ward 5 at Lamond-Riggs Neighborhood Library, with sessions in wards 2 and 7 still being scheduled.

The city stands to lose block grants that fund housing and services for people experiencing homelessness and people living with HIV/AIDS if the DC government fails to demonstrate to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that it is working to “affirmatively further fair housing.” The requirement, which applies to any government agency that accepts HUD funding, seeks to force adherence to a key tenet of the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Each community is required to “actively” work to overcome housing segregation and create more inclusive communities. Simply preventing illegal discrimination is not sufficient in the eyes of the federal government.

DHCD contracted two nonprofit legal organizations — the Poverty & Race Research Action Council (PRRAC) and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law — to research the report, known formally as an Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice. The HUD-mandated document, which is supposed to span five years, provides a mechanism for federal officials to measure local officials’ performance in ensuring compliance with civil rights laws. Funding could be at risk if DC fails to adhere to the plan it produces, though HUD only withholds money in extreme cases, according to Thomas Silverstein, a fair housing attorney working on the report for the Lawyers’ Committee, which has produced similar reports for New Orleans and Los Angeles in the past.

Along with federal and District government data, resident feedback will be an important basis for the report’s conclusions, Silverstein said. To that end, DHCD scheduled six community feedback forums from April 22 to May 9 and three additional upcoming meetings in areas where there were scheduling issues or low turnout.

“The purpose of this meeting really is to get input from community members who are directly affected by housing policy and related policies in DC, both by the government and by private industry,” Silverstein said at a May 6 meeting in Cleveland Park, “to make sure what our analysis shows is consistent with reality, and not just abstractions based on data.”

The forward in a HUD guide for the creation of such reports printed in 1996 during the Clinton administration said much the same thing. It acknowledged HUD had previously tried to prescribe national remedies for local situations that too often failed because the communities were not involved in the decision-making process.

At the April 30 feedback forum in Petworth, attendees talked about a general lack of affordable housing and a shortage of units for large families. Conversation touched on what some residents saw as inadequate funding levels for the Housing Production Trust Fund. Residents also vocally criticized the conditions in public housing units owned by the DC Housing Authority and the opacity of the agency, which they said makes it difficult to lodge a complaint.

Community members also criticized the DC Council’s recent changes to the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, which gives renters the right of first refusal when their building is being sold. Last July, the act was weakened to exempt single-family homes and basement units from the law.

Silverstein said the report will include sections on segregation, racially and ethnically concentrated areas of poverty, publicly supported housing, disproportionate housing needs, disparities in access to opportunity, access for people with disabilities, and fair housing enforcement and outreach. According to information distributed by Silverstein and Megan Haberle, deputy director of PRRAC, the DC government has a responsibility to “take actions to overcome patterns of segregation and foster inclusive communities free from barriers that restrict access to opportunity.”

Along with the Lawyers’ Committee, PRRAC is helping compile the Analysis of Impediments. Silverstein said the recommendations of the District’s last such report, produced in 2012, are widely perceived as inadequate to handle the dramatic rise in housing prices in DC that has led to displacement of longtime residents of the District.

Silverstein said that the Lawyers’ Committee and PRRAC hope to complete a draft of the report by mid-June. After being edited by DHCD, the document will become available for a 30-day public comment period in July before it is finalized.

This article was co-published with Street Sense Media.