Blog / Advocacy

Bread for the City calls on all leaders at every level of government to not only condemn this act of violence, but to condemn white nationalism and the troubling and dangerously hateful rhetoric that fueled this terrorist and fuels many with public platforms even now. Along with these condemnations, we push, urgently, for not only the gun reforms that study after study have shown work to mitigate violent acts but also for long-overdue investments in Black and brown communities across America.

Bread for the City is a proud member of the Fair Budget Coalition, a collection of organizations advocating for budget and public policy initiatives that address systemic social, racial, and economic inequality in DC. Every budget season, our coalition puts out a budget platform with policies that center and invest in communities that have, for too long, experienced divestment and destabilization in DC. Our recommendations are based on a whole-person and whole-community approach to resource reallocation. Read the full platform here!

In partnership with The Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Bread for the City, along with dozens of organizations and experts, submitted the following letter to the DC Council demanding that they reform rapid-rehousing in the District. To get involved in this effort, get in touch with your City Council representative and submit a letter through The Action Network.

Dimitri McDaniel, Staff Attorney at Bread for the City’s Legal Clinic, testified at a Performance Oversight Hearing before the Committee on Housing & Executive Administration regarding the Department of Housing & Community Development and the Housing Production Trust Fund. Bread for the City advocates for increased transparency around the Housing Production Trust Fund through the passing of the Housing Production Trust Fund Transparency Amendment Act of 2021.

We, the undersigned 33 organizations are writing to ask you to use reserves, underspending from government agencies, and/or other funds not dedicated to help DC residents living on low incomes meet basic needs (including but not limited to affordable housing efforts) to provide eviction prevention funding. The stakes are too high to shut down our eviction prevention efforts now. We estimate the unmet need for rental arrears is approximately $74.9 million, and we ask you to identify at least this much funding to meet this need as well as the need for utility arrears which we are not able to estimate.

Bread for the City joins fellow non-profit leaders in DC in requesting that the DC government halt the CARE Pilot Program and stop the creation of “no camping zones,” which are reminiscent of other types of zoning that, throughout our history, have disenfranchised, displaced, disrupted, and destroyed Black neighborhoods and communities. Housing ends homelessness. Bread for the City is opposed to the creation of “no camping zones” and the systematic clearing of encampments.

Join us for a previously recorded Breaking Bread conversation series on housing justice in DC, including dialogue on protecting tenants’ rights, affordable housing development and preservation, public housing redevelopment, and more.