Reply to Shooting at Brandywine & Connecticut Ave NW This Afternoon

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As an owner of rental property in the District, I would be first in line to be barred from participating in the voucher program.   Landlords want to be able to screen their tenants.  Because "source of income" is a  protected category, landlords have to accept any voucher tenant which can pay the rent.  DC's extremely liberal "check the box" laws also make it illegal under most  circumstances to refuse to rent to someone with a prior criminal conviction.  So any offeror of units for  let has to be  willing to participate in a government run housing assistance program regardless of whether they wish to participate in such a program. [/quote]

A friend is grappling with this issue now with a rental unit.

It's easy to rail about landlords but many people have been incarcerated without a change in behavior and that is a lot more power over the individual than any 3rd party has over a tenant.

The shooter in this instance appears to live in a house, EOTP. His criminal behavior going back decades cannot be ascribed to being "unhoused." So his only connection to the voucher program is to associate with someone who lives in a building with a lot of vouchers and frequent mpd visits. What can the landlords do about that? It's not clear that the person the 2 suspects (1 arrested) and victim were allegedly visiting receives a voucher. More will come out after the hearing. Even if so, landlords do not vet visitors or bar them as a conventional shelter does.

Per the WP, DC agencies will not pull vouchers from tenants even if they commit crimes on the premises or do not pay their share of rent. They may be evicted for either but just move up the block or across the street.

If you were creating a program to disperse crime and chaos and avoid accountability it would be hard to do better. [/quote]

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