Blog / Housing Crisis

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.

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.

Many people in Washington D.C. are still struggling to find a consistent income to pay their rent and people still need assistance because of the pandemic. Last month, Bread for the City attorney, Jack Meaney  the Festival of Tenants, a community event held by the Cancel Rent Coalition in D.C., where there were informational booths, community activities, and resources for tenants. The event was held in Ward 5 to target Councilmember Kenyan R. McDuffie, who has not yet pledged his support for the coalition’s demands.

Housing literally saves lives—and the combination of COVID-19 and DC’s underinvestment in deeply affordable housing will undoubtedly further racial inequity.

On Thursday May 20, 2021, Bread for the City and our community members provided oral and written testimony in support of two bills currently being discussed at the D.C. City Council: the Eviction Record Sealing Authority Amendment of 2021 and the Fair Tenant Screening Act of 2021. Both pieces of legislation will benefit low-income housing applicants, particularly people of color, who regularly face discrimination and indignity during the housing application process, the eviction process, and within our criminal justice system.

Bread for the City strongly encourages the DC Council to vote “no” on Chairman Mendelson’s proposed amendment to the eviction moratorium, the Coronavirus Public Health Extension Emergency Act of 2021.  Landlords are currently prohibited from serving eviction notices and filing new eviction cases against tenants for the nonpayment of rent.