Testimony: DC’s Housing Affordability and Preservation Ecosystem

Policy Attorney Makenna Osborn testified before the Committee on Housing concerning four bills which cover a wide range of topics and propose significant changes to the District’s housing ecosystem.

Our testimony focuses on the provisions that most directly impact Children’s Law Center’s clients. In summary:

• Children’s Law Center supports the passage of the Fair Housing Practices
  Act because it is an appropriate response to the documented problem of
  unfair utility and move out billing practices harming District tenants.
• Children’s Law Center strongly opposes the new “public safety” ground for eviction proposed in the RENTAL Act because it is an overly broad,
  unnecessary expansion of existing law.
• Children’s Law Center urges the Committee to ensure any changes to the
  District’s eviction process based on the RENTAL Act and the Eviction
  Reform Act appropriately balance the interests of protecting tenants from harmful evictions with the interest to incentivize rental housing operation in the District.
• Children’s Law Center urges the Council to ensure any changes to the District’s tools for incentivizing and supporting affordable housing prioritize increasing the number of homes that are available and affordable to households with an income at or below 30% of the Area Median Income (AMI).