Unfortunately, the mayor's budget proposal is full of harmful cuts to critical programs and services that assist D.C.'s lowest-income residents. Despite an insufficient amount of funding for housing vouchers, a reduction in rental assistance, and the termination of more than 3,000 families from the Rapid Re-Housing (RRH) Program, the mayor's Budget Support Act (BSA) includes disastrous proposals to eliminate established rights and due process protections in the programs/services upon which people experiencing homelessness rely. Now, it's up to the D.C. Council to decide what the FY26 Budget and Budget Support Act will look like.

The Problem

Subtitle K, Sec. 4, of the mayor's Budget Support Act (BSA) was particularly harmful. The Human Services Committee was able to remove some of the harmful provisions of the subtitle; however, due to an updated fiscal impact claim, the remaining version of Subtitle K in the Budget Support Act (BSA) would still strip the right of non-congregate shelter from families experiencing homelessness and further eliminate protections from RRH participants (including ending the subsidy before a pending appeal can occur).

This is, unfortunately, the second consecutive year that the mayor’s proposed BSA would further harm Rapid Re-Housing Program families. Unsurprisingly, program protections continue to be removed so that families can be kicked out of the program more quickly. However, the mayor’s attempt in this subtitle to reverse established law that requires D.C. to provide non-congregate (private) shelter to families experiencing homelessness is a new, surprising, and damaging proposal.

D.C. Council cannot allow Mayor Bowser to use the BSA to quietly change long-standing D.C. policy, increasing harm and trauma to families with minor children seeking emergency shelter.

• The Council has unanimously rejected a proposal to place homeless families in congregate shelters twice, in 2010^[1] and in 2014^[2], including then-Councilmember Bowser.
• In both 2010 and 2014, numerous advocates, families, and experts opposed the placement of families in congregate settings, including domestic violence advocates stating that “Communal shelter is the most dangerous housing model for domestic violence victims and children in the District's homeless shelter system.”
• Congregate shelters pose a significant threat to child health and safety.
• “For almost as long as it has had a statutory obligation to provide shelter to the homeless, D.C. has been prohibited from placing homeless families in congregate shelters. This prohibition, dating back to 1988, is premised on an understanding that families have special needs that are best served by affording them apartment-style shelter”. DC v Reid, 104 A.3d 859 (2014)
• The proposed change risks losing all progress D.C. has made since it closed D.C. General in 2019.

What’s Next

If the mayor wants to reverse D.C.’s commitment to a D.C. family’s right to a non-congregate shelter placement, she should propose that legislation and allow the public to renew concerns at a legislative hearing within the normal legislative process. The mayor should not be permitted to sneakily eliminate long-standing D.C. rights under the cover and “quiet” of a BSA subtitle. Discussion between councilmembers at the budget work session to stop this has been encouraging thus far. We need to make sure it stays strong.

The mayor and DHS should not continue to snatch existing rights and protections from Rapid Re-Housing Program families, creating loopholes to quickly exit them to homelessness.

D.C. needs more than the 156 PSH housing vouchers funded by the mayor for Rapid Re-Housing Program families that DHS will terminate in FY26. D.C. needs different types of vouchers (PSH, TAH, and LRSP) to end homelessness for families and individuals experiencing homelessness.

E-mail to tell D.C. Council to oppose the mayor's plan to send families back into congregate shelters, reject further harm to RRH families, and invest in housing vouchers that end homelessness for D.C.'s lowest-income residents.