At-large council profile: Lowery urges strengthened housing policies such as rent control

When Bernie Sanders was mayor of Burlington, Vt., in the 1980s, he was an early champion of affordable housing programs known as community land trusts. Now a DC Council candidate wants to emulate Sanders’ program in the nation’s capital.

“I still have friends in DC who tell me stories about living in Vermont in one of the houses within the community land trust,” said Jeremiah Lowery, a longtime progressive activist who is running in the June 19 Democratic primary against incumbent Anita Bonds and real estate professional Marcus Goodwin. “It takes the profit motive out and ensures we’re building housing where people can actually live.”

Lowery notes that this isn’t a foreign concept in the District. The 11th Street Bridge Park project in Anacostia is set to include a community land trust when completed next year. But Lowery believes the approach could be beneficial in other neighborhoods, too. He’s also running on expanding rent control, telling DC for Democracy that would be “one of the most important policy options we have to ensure residents are able to stay in their homes. We should continue to look for ways to expand rent control on existing, new, and vacant units.”

Lowery has spoken out about housing issues as an activist. In 2016, The Washington Post quoted his testimony at a public hearing held by Bonds, now his opponent: “Landlords with an excessive number of code violations . . . should be banned from receiving any public monies.” Lowery has talked openly about how his mother experienced homelessness, saying at a recent Ward 2 forum that the issue was “near and dear” to him as a result — a cornerstone of his campaign. He said he’d work to ensure the city meets its goal of ending homelessness by 2020. The city “has a plan. It’s just not being implemented properly,” he said.

Lowery has also sought to draw a contrast between himself and his opponents on other issues.

“I support our strong paid family leave law, a law that will help thousands of DC families and working women,” Lowery says on his website. “Both of my opponents have stated on the record they want to repeal it.”

Lowery also opposes “billion dollar tax breaks and subsidies for Amazon,” while Goodwin and Bonds have been more supportive of the company coming to DC. “My philosophy is to always put the people over the monied interests,” Lowery said. “I’m doing that through the campaign I’m running — I’m the only candidate in this at-large race for the Democratic primary ticket who hasn’t accepted corporate donations or PAC money. We’ve received 100 percent of our contributions from individuals.”

His campaign website is jeremiah2018.com.