Making a Dent in Homelessness

D.C. Rent Act Aims to Reduce List of 52,000 Waiting for Aid

As 52,000 households in the District wait for spots to open up in either public housing or a federally subsidized voucher program, D.C. Council members introduced legislation yesterday to fund more affordable housing with city funds.

Supporters are asking the council to adopt the D.C. Housing Authority Rent Supplement Act of 2006 and fund it with $19 million that would help as many as 2,650 low-income District families pay the rent. Some of the funds would be used to encourage developers to build and maintain affordable units.

Pat Wright, 50, said that she is on lists for both public housing and the housing choice voucher program, more commonly known as Section 8. She lives in a shelter in Columbia Heights with her 11-year-old grandnephew and has searched fruitlessly for an affordable place to live.

Wright said that she has little hope of securing an apartment by waiting for her number to come up. "It's backed up so bad that people tell me they've been on the list nine, 10 years," Wright said.

Of the 52,000 on the waiting lists, approximately 20,000 are considered homeless, according to city officials. A recent report by the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute found that the District lost 7,500 housing units priced under $500 between 2000 and 2004.

On the upside, the creation of more luxury housing stock and rising real estate assessments have filled city coffers with a bounty of tax dollars.

"It's time we shared more of the real estate prosperity with those at greatest need," said council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who co-introduced the rent supplement legislation yesterday with Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4).

Supporters of the program attending yesterday's council meeting included Pearl Mallory, 85, who pays $755 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in the Golden Rule Plaza apartment complex in Northwest. She said that even though she works at another District senior citizen home, she can barely make it.

"It's a shame I got to work to live," Mallory said. "If I didn't have a job working, I couldn't pay at all."

Housing assistance programs for District residents are funded primarily through federal funds, and the waiting lists have ballooned as federal monies have decreased. Since 2003, District applicants on the housing choice voucher list increased from 30,901 to about 47,000, according to D.C. Housing Authority officials.

Meanwhile, the housing authority anticipates a 9 percent cut in federal dollars for its operating subsidy for public housing in fiscal 2007, said Executive Director Michael Kelly. Graham said the city has provided more than $14 million in the past two fiscal years.

The council proposal comes as city housing officials are considering freezing the voucher waiting list because so few people have a chance of securing housing through the program.

"It's kind of giving false hope," said Graham, who added that the list also serves as a valuable indicator of the great need for affordable units.