Ask a current DC Housing Choice Voucher Program (DC HCVP) participant how long it takes them to find housing, and you’re likely to receive responses that range from 6 months to over a year. Particularly for those 3–4-bedroom voucher holders seeking housing in the more desirable, “High-Opportunity” neighborhoods of the city.

DCHA’S Plan to Reduce Rents will Negatively Impact Voucher Holders
If the DC Housing Authority moves forward with a plan that was just recently discussed in their May 5, 2022 Board of Commissioners Operations Committee Meeting, to reduce rents in these High-Opportunity Neighborhoods, many voucher holders may find it even more difficult to find housing in areas with lower rates of crime, accessibility to better schools and quality grocery stores. This will certainly have a resounding impact on a substantial number of low-income families in the District, right at a time when DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) has made it a priority to push for housing for our low-income citizens.

Over the past few years, the DC Housing Authority has worked to enable their voucher holders to move from higher-poverty and highly racially segregated neighborhoods by varying its payment standard by neighborhood location.  In a 2018 study conducted by the Urban Institute,

“DC was the only site where landlords were NOT substantially more likely to deny voucher holders in low-poverty areas compared with high-poverty areas. Moving to these types of neighborhoods allows low-income families to improve their lives—a key goal of the Housing Choice Voucher Program.”

This means that out of all the other sites evaluated in the study, DC demonstrated that by allowing the value of a voucher to vary based on the market rents in a given neighborhood, housing providers in these areas are more open to renting to voucher holders... in other words, it WORKS…this method helps DCHA achieve its stated mission. (See below for other resources that speak to the impact of rent amounts on voucher holder acceptance.)

If the DCHA is truly vested in improving the lives of their voucher holders, decreasing rents to DC HCVP Housing Providers (HPs) is the wrong way to go about it. DC Housing Providers, particularly small HPs (a group that makes up the majority of the HPs participating in the program), already have an onslaught of issues to deal with such as very Pro-Tenant DC Housing laws, increasingly higher property taxes and a rate of inflation that is the highest in years.

Many HPs rent to voucher holders to help improve the lives of low-income families, but the proposed rent decreases literally threatens a small HPs ability to afford to rent to voucher holders in High-Opportunity areas, which would instead push them to market rate renters in order to make ends meet.  Which would limit a high percentage of voucher holders to units that are in areas outside of these preferred neighborhoods.

It is imperative that DCHA re-evaluate their plan and find an alternative to decreasing rents. Otherwise voucher holders will likely be relegated to high-poverty, less desirable areas of the city, as is the case with many other Public Housing Agencies.

If you are a DC voucher holder you already know the struggles involved with finding housing in neighborhoods where your children can attend quality schools and where you can feel safe walking day or night. You have experienced the bias from the social stigma associated with voucher holders that already makes it difficult for you to get an honest shot at renting a home in certain areas of the District. You know that competitive rental rates improve your family’s chance of renting in high-opportunity neighborhoods.

If you are a voucher holder looking for a new home, DCHA’s proposed decreases WILL IMPACT YOU!

If you are a voucher holder already in a rental, DCHA’s proposed decreases WILL IMPACT YOU!

If you are a DC Housing Choice Voucher Program Housing Provider, DCHA’s proposed decreases WILL IMPACT YOU!

If you are a low-income housing advocate, DCHA’s proposed decreases WILL IMPACT YOUR CONSTITUENTS!

Use your voice and sign this petition. Also, let the DC Housing Authority and their Board of Commissioners know how you feel during their next Board of Commissioners meeting, currently scheduled for June 8, 2022. To provide live testimony during the public comments portion of the Board meeting go to https://www Dchousing.org/speak and submit the registration form no later than 24 hours BEFORE the meeting begins. If you need assistance in completing the on-line registration to speak, please call 202-535-1000. DCHA Residents will have 5 minutes to speak and non-DCHA residents will have 3 minutes to speak.

RESOURCES:
DCHA FY 2023 Move to Work Annual Plan (page 50)

“It should be noted that at 110% of the HUD FMR, voucher holders would only be able to access 15 of the city’s 56 submarkets.”

A Pilot Study of Landlord Acceptance of Housing Choice Vouchers (Findings from Washington, DC) The Urban Institute

Can Landlords Be Paid to Stop Avoiding Voucher Tenants?

A study done by Dionissi Aliprantis, Hal Martin, and David Phillips titled, “Can Landlords Be Paid to Stop Avoiding Voucher Tenants” found that “tenants become more likely to lease up in neighborhoods where vouchers pay more. Prior to the policy change, voucher tenants who move are about three times more likely to move to low rent neighborhood than to high-rent neighborhoods. In the year after vouchers in high-rent neighborhoods begin to pay more, voucher tenants become equally likely to move into high-rent versus low-rent neighborhoods. Some neighborhoods that previously had no voucher tenants also begin receiving voucher tenants.”