What does comedy have in common with affordable housing? The secret ingredient for both is timing.
At the start of her second term in 2019, Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled an ambitious plan to build 36,000 housing units in the District, including 12,000 income-restricted, subsidized homes, by 2025. This plan was part of a broader regional initiative led by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) to build 320,000 housing units by 2030 in order to address the region’s housing shortage. In addition to answering the call from MWCOG, Bowser published a Housing Equity Report in October 2019 that broke the 12,000 affordable unit goal down into specific targets for each of the District’s planning areas.
The purpose of these more specific targets was to reverse historical patterns of segregation and exclusion by creating quantifiable affordable housing production goals for wealthy, predominantly white neighborhoods such as Georgetown, Dupont Circle, Capitol Hill, and in particular communities west of Rock Creek Park. The below maps from the Housing Equity Report illustrate the distribution of income-restricted, subsidized units in the District as of 2018 (top) and the production goals for income-restricted, subsidized units from 2019 onward (bottom), with a clear emphasis on a more balanced geographic distribution:
Since 2019, the District has made considerable progress in reaching both the 36,000-unit and 12,000 income-restricted, subsidized-unit goals. Through February 2024, developers in DC have produced 33,661 total units (94% of the target) and 9,230 affordable units (77% of the target). Yet the most affluent parts of the District are still lagging well behind their specific targets. Neighborhoods west of Rock Creek (“Rock Creek West”) have produced a mere 135 affordable units, or 6.8% of their target. Capitol Hill has produced 321 affordable units, or 22.9% of its target. Georgetown, Dupont Circle, and Logan Circle (“Near Northwest”) have produced 329 affordable units, or 26.3% of their target.
Meanwhile, by contrast, neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River have produced 3,539 affordable units, 220% of their target. Despite the well-intentioned goals of the Housing Equity Report, the production of income-restricted, subsidized housing in the District continues to be deeply uneven geographically, with such homes mostly absent from wealthy white neighborhoods and heavily concentrated in low-income black neighborhoods. Despite DC policymakers’ big push to build 12,000 income-restricted, subsidized units within five years, the de facto residential segregation of our city continues.
Why has the implementation of the Housing Equity Report failed to move the needle more significantly? Often, policymakers focus on cost. Because land values are higher in wealthy areas, building affordable housing in those areas is more expensive. This is certainly true, yet the District has demonstrated a willingness to prioritize funding for projects in these areas despite higher land costs, precisely in order to meet its geographic distribution goals. Observers also focus on political opposition, since residents rich in money, or time, have in many notable instances organized to try to block new housing, whether market-rate or affordable, in their neighborhoods. This is also certainly true, yet there is now considerable political will in the District, including from the mayor, DC Council, and many Advisory Neighborhood Commissions, to support such projects.
