New Report Reveals Uninhabitable Units, Shocking Incompetence at D.C. Public Housing Authority
D.C officials are calling for sweeping reforms to D.C. Housing Authority's governance, or even a federal takeover, in the wake of a damning new report.
The worst landlord in Washington, D.C., might be the district itself.
That's according to a damning new federal audit of the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) that criticized the authority for failing to provide "decent, safe, and sanitary housing opportunities for residents" at the 8,084 public housing units it operates.
The report from the U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found that DCHA had let many of the units become damaged by persistent water leaks and mold, had failed to adequately monitor lead risks to child residents, and failed to control crime at authority properties.
Photos included in the report show images of units made totally uninhabitable by black mold, crumbling walls, and missing floor tiles.
Roughly one-fifth of the authority's housing units are currently vacant. Some of these have been rendered uninhabitable by a lack of maintenance. Others are ready to be leased out, but the authority has failed to match them with an applicant.
In total, the report lists 82 deficiencies that HCDA will have to make serious remedial progress on within three months or risk more serious federal intervention.
"The DC Housing Authority is completely dysfunctional; it is failing its residents, and it is failing this city. It needs a complete leadership overhaul," said D.C. Councilmember Elissa Silverman in response to the report on Friday.
She promised to introduce legislation, which WTOP reports will include greater City Council oversight of authority funds and reconfiguring the authority's board to include members with housing finance and property management expertise.
One DCHA board member recommended to The Washington Post, which first reported on the investigation, that the authority be taken over by HUD or at least placed in receivership by the department. The long-troubled public housing authority was last placed in receivership in the 1990s.
The HUD report spotlighted serious governance issues it says have contributed to the dismal housing quality uncovered in its investigation.
DCHA's 13-member board of commissioners is internally divided and lacked transparency, according to the investigation. While commissioners were aware of serious problems faced by DCHA, they "could not speak to specific actions it was taking at DCHA to make improvements in these areas," reads the report.
The investigation also notes that DCHA Executive Director Brenda Donald is receiving a salary that exceeds HUD's salary cap, despite having "no experience in property development, property management or managing federal housing programs."
Donald, a former D.C. vice mayor, was initially appointed on a temporary basis in June last year while a nationwide search for a new director could take place. She was brought on as a permanent director in August 2021. The HUD report recommends Donald undergo training in managing HUD programs and public housing.
Public housing authorities across the country struggle with deteriorating unit quality and high operating expenses. The New York City Housing Authority periodically tops the Worst Landlord Watchlist put out by the city's Public Advocate. The Navajo Housing Authority—which manages 8,500 units of housing across the Navajo Nation in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah—so badly managed new housing projects that it had to return $26 million to the federal government in 2017.
But D.C. appears to be in a league of its own. The HUD report paints a picture of an organization that can't even perform basic administrative functions.
The authority hasn't updated its waitlist for public housing units in over a decade and can't say how many people are even on the list. Inspectors discovered occupied units were listed as vacant, while vacant units were listed as occupied. DCHA has also failed to properly keep track of reasonable rental rates for the housing voucher program it oversees, raising the risk that it's being overcharged by participating landlords.
This poor performance is costing the housing authority money too. Its per-occupied unit expenses are 33 percent higher than that of public housing authorities in Atlanta, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.
In response to rising rents across the country, left-wing members of Congress have proposed repealing the Faircloth Amendment—which generally bans public housing authorities from adding new housing to their portfolios—and going on a massive public housing construction campaign.
The Democratic-controlled House passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D–N.Y.) repealing the Faircloth Amendment in 2020, but it died in the Senate.
The issues highlighted in the HUD investigation of DCHA suggest the authority can't even manage the units it has, let alone take on greater responsibility.
Rent Free is a weekly newsletter from Christian Britschgi on urbanism and the fight for less regulation, more housing, more property rights, and more freedom in America's cities.
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D.C officials are calling for sweeping reforms to D.C. Housing Authority’s governance, or even a federal takeover
Great. A federal takeover. That will really get to the root of this problem.
Never occurred to anyone to sell the units to someone who knows how to run a real estate business?
Like Trump?
(runs away)
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The Feds cannot run DC worse than DC has run itself.
Have Congress take over ALL of DC’s governance. Stop pretending that the morons who live there are capable of governing themselves.
DC was never meant to be anything more than the seat of government, not a large city.
I could agree with Congress taking over all of DC’s governance but they should return all the residential and other non-government properties back to Maryland and Virginia as they do so. The idea of a federal city is not healthy.
Concur.
Though, I disagree with the subhead, this is not shocking.
Agree – there is nothing shocking about bureaucratic incompetence. The only thing that would be shocking is if it worked as intended. Luckily (?), there is no chance of that.
I’d stick it in Maryland, honestly. Minimize the damage. But DC as a self-governing entity has been an abject failure.
Having done a several year stint in the District I can confirm it to be the most dysfunction government I’ve ever seen. Every service barely operates. It reminds me of developing nations I’ve visited.
Next they should look at the jails. I heard some people housed there recently asked to be transferred to Gitmo, because the conditions were so bad.
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WTOP reports [Can we include a link here?]
Not content with the laziness or sloppiness of pushing “Can we include a link here?” to copy, Britschgi doubles down by not even expanding the acronym.
This gives some evidence to my theory that a stronger editorial presence is needed on this site.
Are you calling for sweeping reforms?
The most sweeping reform of all, which we SOOO desperately need… Is to appoint a committee of (totally objective and non-self-interested) experts!
(I volunteer!!! Nominate MEEEEEE!!!!)
4 or 5 more editors.
I think I’m calling for KMW to be replaced.
“WTOP reports [Can we include a link here?]”
1. The word reports where that appears in the article is a working link.
2. WTOP is a DC radio station’s call letters.
https://wtop.com/about-wtop-news/
It’s not expanded because it isn’t really a valid acronym any more. and expanding the original meaning would actually create more confusion rather than reducing confusion.
The station does use an acronym for their home base…GENC (Glass Enclosed Nerve Center). One of my first apartments was around the corner from them.
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Bet no matter what, bets you don’t make nearly as much as Brenda Donald.
You’re correct in-so-far-as what you say. The part that you did NOT say is, in order for people to GIVE A SHIT, they need PROPERTY RIGHTS! WHY should I take care of shit (other than public-minded decency, which is sadly lacking, yes), if I can not OWN what I take care of, and nurture?
And if I take care of, and nurture, my web site… Marxist ASSHOLES (some of them so-called right-wingers) will want to TEAR DOWN Section 230, so that these hyenas can shit ALL OVER my property!!! WHAT an utter surprise!!!
“WHY should I take care of shit (other than public-minded decency, which is sadly lacking, yes), if I can not OWN what I take care of, and nurture?”
BECAUSE YOU FUCKING LIVE IN IT.
Simple self comfort should be enough.
How you treat where you live is a reflection of how much you respect yourself.
Goddamned racists blaming *BLACK* mold for making the units uninhabitable… 😉
Yellow mold, black mold, brown mold… I reject them ALL!!!
Only RED-WHITE-AND-BLUE mold is acceptable to MEEEE!!!!
Black mold matters.
By the way who did all that damage to begin with?
Probably someone who eats a lot of poop and acts like a squirrel.
Incompetence at The DC Housing Authority is hardly shocking.
Looking at the state of things, I could understand that there might be electrical problems too.
Yes, my first thought was, “And exactly WHO is shocked?”
The tenants probably, since the electrical wiring is probably in as bad a shape as everything else.
Everything government touches turns to shit.
What happens if the government touches shit?
It turns into twice as much shit. DC government has apparently been touching shit for a long time.
I think it might be geometric progression.
Well….it does seem to fondle itself frequently.
Fuck Joe Midas!
The point of these housing authorities isn’t to actually house anyone. It’s to provide employment to liberal arts majors at every level of management and graft to connected contractors.
The only difference to running one competently to one that is not, is more work for management. If you run it badly, you still keep your job, pension, salary. You are just less busy.
And perhaps worst of all, poly couples cannot even qualify for rent control in these apartments.
yet …
So D.C. is run by Congress. They delegate authority to a city council, but it’s still Congress’s bailiwick. So the idea that control should be given over to Federal authorities is bizarre, since it technically already is being run by Federal authorities.
The difference is that what this article calls “federal oversight” means shifting to a higher level of incompetence.
My. brother in law invested in an 8 unit building near a DC metro stop. He fixed it up; he installed security; he hired a near retired carpenter to live in one unit as on site manager; he encouraged the manager to rent to friends and family with incentives for consitant rent payment. Decent middle class housing. Within five years, the place was trashed, and the owner moved out of state to get away from the threats to his family. Some neighborhoods are NOT good investment, because cretins live there.
If we had a functional justice system the cretins who trashed the place would be held accountable and the owners wouldn’t fear for their safety.
Yeah. It’s a boring reform, but I think one of the best things the US could do is spend some time reinvesting in courts to allow for actual efficiency. But it is hard, no amount of people thrown at certain legal investigations can meaningfully speed it up. But I figure something must exist. Like traffic court basically.
I don’t know enough though to suggest those reforms. That’s a very fact based reform topic and I tend to stick at a high level.
You can’t fix this problem with a “functioning justice system”.
Private property only gets maintained by people who have an economic stake in its maintenance. Public housing never works.
Public housing never works
It needz moar blax, women, and gays in charge to make things gooder.
Incompetence and government are synonyms.
Tried to look up her salary, but could find nothing but bromides [“25 years in senior management,” etc.] but admittedly no experience in real estate or property management. She apparently is very good at hiring cronies and enforcing loyalty and getting on with those in power.
https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/528111/dcha-board-will-vote-on-a-two-year-contract-for-brenda-donald/
zero persons surprised.
Need More Money and More Power. Obviously.
These tidbits from the two links near the end of the article.
” Decades of insufficient federal funding and weak oversight have left public housing developments in poor condition, ”
“the Faircloth Amendment, a 22-year-old provision which blocks the construction of new public housing units.” “The repeal of the amendment, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), was passed as part of the Democrats’ Moving Forward Act, aimed at upgrading and decarbonizing the nation’s infrastructure. ”
And they go on to talk about all the Money and Power they’ll get to build all the new housing.
Public housing tenants have left public housing in poor condition. I would be shocked to discover that there wasn’t enough money to account for the square footage by location, for the most part. But overpriced construction, likely, followed by government rates, means there’s probably been enough *money* spent that there should be some nice facilities, but having been filtered through the government, it didn’t buy as much as it should have. And then there’s no proprietary interest from the tenants, so things get broken.
This notion that people deserve a free roof over their heads just for breathing is remarkably feudalistic, except in the case of a feudal lord, where you’d have gotten the roof, you’d have been expected to actually labor.
you’d have been expected to actually labor.
or at least accede to the ‘droit du seigeur’.
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Why don’t they bring in some of the respected technocrats responsible for bringing high speed rail to California, to show them how to manage public projects better?
How odd… The (supposedly) libertarian publication does a story on public housing . . . without saying that there shouldn’t be any public housing!
I’m shocked, shocked to find that incompetence is going on in here!
It’s not a lack of funding that leaves the public housing agency not knowing whether units are rented or vacant. It’s a total lack of competence.
Evidently, what’s wrong with the Faircloth Amendment is not that it froze federal funding for more public housing, but that it allowed any federal funds to continue to go to public housing. Repealing it (allowing more such housing to be built and incompetently managed) is doubling down on failure – just what I expect from Dimmocrats.
The biggest advantage of being a government slumlord: No judge will ever sentence you to live in the housing you manage.
DC has been run by democrats for ages.
It is a one party zone.
So of course there is no policing, and public housing is awful.
Let’s do articles on any other democrat run city like Baltimore, Nee Orleans, etc.
And see if it is any different.
Then do some long term Republican run cities.
I bet even the public housing is better in Republican areas