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[quote=Anonymous]The Forest Hills Connection article provides a useful primer on the Housing Choice and Housing First programs. See link above to click links to additional information.

[quote]Housing Choice, formerly known as Section 8, is a federally funded program focused on low-income renters who need assistance, and is administered by the DC Housing Authority (DCHA). The waiting list is thousands of names long, and has been closed since 2013. Moving up the list can be a years-long process. The federal government hasn’t changed DC’s allotment in years, and local municipalities can provide additional funding, but Street Sense in DCist reported in 2022 that the District allocated only enough money to take an additional 310 people off the waitlist in the 2022 fiscal year, and 20 in FY2023. One man in the article waited 15 years for his name to rise to the top, during which time he experienced several bouts of homelessness and ended up in housing under a Housing First program.

Housing First is an approach to moving people from homelessness into permanent housing, recommended by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, and used by the DC Department of Human Services (DHS) in the administration of its own housing voucher programs, which include permanent supportive housing (PSH) for the chronically homeless, including intensive services, and targeted assisted vouchers (TAH) for individuals or households who need fewer services. We explain more here.

The DHS programs have seen rapid growth. D[b]HS, in its frequently updated “A Path to Ending Homelessness” report, said it added more than 5,000 new PSH and TAH vouchers in the 2022 and 2023 fiscal years, more than doubling participation in programs that issued their first vouchers in 2017. Additionally, the DC Department of Behavioral Health Services and programs targeting veterans and returning citizens issue their own housing vouchers. The growth in the DSH programs corresponds with significant upswing in voucher renters in at least six neighborhood rent-stabilized buildings, first reported in 2019.[/b]

DCHA sets all voucher payment rates, including those under Housing Choice and Housing First, by determining “rent reasonableness.” HUD blasted DCHA in an October 2022 report for paying landlords rents well in excess of what it considers fair market rates. And The Washington Post and DCist reported at length in February and March on DCHA policies that [b]allowed property owners to “command double or triple what they would otherwise collect” from unsubsidized residents of rent-stabilized buildings, creating incentives to turn the properties into de facto public housing.[/b]

In March, Council member Frumin introduced legislation seeking to address the overpayments in rent-stabilized buildings by requiring that DCHA “remove the exemption of housing vouchers from rent stabilization laws.”[/quote]

"Returning citizens" are convicts who may have committed sex offenses, murder or other violent crime. [/quote]

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