During the pandemic, emergency legislation made it easier for people falling on hard times to obtain rental assistance and stay in their homes or apartments.
Now, D.C. leaders say some are using the changes to delay their eviction, and those delays are impacting landlords that provide affordable housing in the city.
“The long-term continuation of these emergency policies, some of them becoming permanent policies, have put the affordable housing that we have invested so heavily in at risk, ” said D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser at a press conference on Monday.
Bowser joined D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson to announce emergency legislation that both said would roll back the Emergency Rental Assistance Program, or ERAP, to where it was before the pandemic.
“The current situation is forcing landlords to essentially subsidize their tenants,” Mendelson said. “That’s not the way that housing policy should work.”
Among the problems that have resulted in what Mendelson calls a “financial crisis” for affordable housing providers, is some tenants used the emergency legislation to delay the outcome of evictions, resulting in unpaid rent totals growing.
Click here to read the rest of the article written by Mike Murillo over at WTOP
