Media release – Monday, November 28, 2022
Contact Nick DelleDonne
Delledonne.n@comcast.net 703-929-6656
Social Housing Ushers in New Deal for Affordability in DC
In a Council hearing on November 22, DC residents sent a resounding signal that after two terms in office, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s ambitious housing program has failed to meet the city’s affordable housing crisis, despite rampant development. 154 witnesses signed up for ten hours of testimony, virtually all of it in favor of a drastic alternative to the Mayor’s developer-driven, market-rate housing that continues to scar the city landscape, leaving it bereft of critically needed affordable housing.
At the hearing before the Council Committee on Housing, overwhelmingly residents called for social housing, for use of eminent domain to purchase the prime real estate at the Wardman Hotel and for the DC Office of Planning to undertake Large Tract Review for the benefit of the community.
Introduced earlier this year by Ward 4 Councilmember Janeese Lewis George with 7 co-sponsors, her Green New Deal for Housing bill – B24-802 – in a marathon session chaired by Councilmember Anita Bonds slipped into the record books and ushered in a new day for affordable housing for DC residents.
Here is a report from CM Janeese Lewis-George:
A big leap forward for a Green New Deal for Housing. Despite it taking place just two days before Thanksgiving, more than 150 residents signed up to speak at a Council hearing on my bill to create social housing in DC. Social housing is District-owned, mixed-income, sustainable, public transit–oriented housing. Because social housing is publicly owned, all surplus rent goes into lowering rent for tenants and keeping units permanently affordable or deeply affordable in our communities. I feel overwhelmed with gratitude for everyone who made time to testify at the hearing. We had an incredible diversity of speakers that included native DC residents, immigrant street vendors, tenants, housing organizers, climate activists, seniors, young people, labor unions, ANC Commissioners, and many other community leaders supporting this bill and offering great recommendations on how to strengthen it. DC residents know how critical it is to confront our housing crisis and our climate crisis. If you want to weigh in on the bill, send written testimony to housing@dccouncil.gov by Friday, December 2. Make your voice heard!
