Release: Friday, Nov. 12, 2021
Contact: Nick DelleDonne ,
delledonne.n@comcast.net, 703 929 6656
Grassroots Calls for Racial Equity Tool,
Immediate Restoration of Housing Funds for Poor
Following the damning report of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that Mayor Bowser’s housing administration misdirected funds to deprive the most needy in the city of housing, the city’s leading grassroots planning organization (DCGPC) charges racial inequity and demands immediate action to restore funds for housing for the extremely low income households in DC.
On September 30, the OIG reported the DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), between 2016 and 2020, violated the law that prescribes how Housing Production Trust Fund (HPTF) ignored the law that at least 50% of the HPTF funds assist extremely low-income (ELI) households. DHCD spent $61 million of a required $142 million.
The DC Grassroots Planning Coalition (DCGPC) charges that violation is an instance of racial inequity which the Comp Plan requires the city address. With half of all African American families earning less than $46,000 annually, DHCD’s failure to fund housing for ELI families constitutes a “massive racial equity failure” in our city’s housing programs. “This racial equity failure widens disparities in housing and economic development between the District’s poor and its incoming increasingly wealthy population,” said DCGPC Executive Director Parisa Norouzi.
Mayor Bowser touts allocating $100 million annually to the HPTF and the goal of 12,000 affordable housing units by 2025 as evidence of her commitment to affordable housing. But she and her agency are burying that commitment by denying housing affordable to those most in need.
In an open letter below, DCGPC calls also on DC Council to remedy DHCD’s funding violation and immediately hold a public hearing to hear from public witnesses, including those directly impacted by DHCD’s misuse of funding.
DCGPC calls on the DC government immediately to develop a racial equity tool that DHCD be required to use from the outset to identify development projects to fund, maintain oversight to ensure effective use of use of HPTF funding during construction, and impose stricter accountability.
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11/12/21, 02:29:36 PM |
FINAL-DCGPC-OPEN-LETTER-TO-MAYOR-AND-DHCD-HUBBARD.pdf