D.C. Councilmembers Pinto, Silverman Introduce Housing Agency Reform Bill

By Colleen Grablick

D.C. Councilmembers Elissa Silverman and Brooke Pinto announced legislation to revamp the city’s embattled public housing authority, DCHA, on Wednesday, opposing the emergency bill introduced by Mayor Muriel Bowser and Phil Mendelson earlier this week.

The bill from outgoing At-Large member Silverman and Ward 2’s Pinto is permanent legislation — so with the council’s legislative session set to wrap on Tuesday, Pinto will have to reintroduce it January. (At the end of a two-year legislative session, any bills not voted on go to the Bill Graveyard and must be reintroduced in the next council period.) While it can’t go anywhere right now, the legislation comes as lawmakers and housing advocates attempt to stop Bowser’s reform bill — an emergency proposal that critics have decried as a “power grab” — from passing next week.

“We are introducing it as an alternative to [Bowser and Mendelson’s] emergency package,” Silverman said in an interview on Wednesday. “A common ground is we agree that there needs to be board reform. I think where there is a difference of opinion is that — we don’t think that board reform is enough.”

During last week’s marathon legislative meeting, Mendelson made an eleventh-hour decision to postpone the vote on the emergency bill, as it looked unlikely to pass, and planned to put it back on the table for a vote on Dec. 20th. (Because it’s a piece of emergency legislation, it needs nine votes to pass.) Both Pinto and Silverman spoke out against Bowser’s bill, as did D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, who wrote a letter urging the council to vote against the mayor’s legislation. On Wednesday, he again tweeted in favor of waiting and passing an alternative reform bill.

The lawmakers’ bill — set to be formally introduced Thursday — addresses the makeup of the federally funded housing authority’s board, but also mandates certain oversight reports by the Council and requires specific use of local D.C. tax dollars go towards unit repair. Silverman described their bill as a “comprehensive approach” to overhauling the agency, as it attempts to recover from a damning federal audit that identified major failures.

“I have talked to public housing experts, people who live in public housing, who rely on the public housing authority for vouchers, legal services experts…everyone who has reached out me or I’ve talked to who has an up close view of the housing authority is against the emergency legislation proposed by the mayor and the chairman,” Silverman said. “And that is because they believe there needs to be input and a much more comprehensive approach to reform the DCHA.”

Pinto and Silverman’s bill would replace the current 13-person board of commissioners with a nine-member board, maintaining three seats for voucher recipients or public housing residents, selected by elections. Two members would have extremely low-income housing finance or development experience, two with extremely low-income housing management experience, a legal services advocate, and a financial compliance expert. The board would be required to seek input from the existing Resident Advisory Council on any resolutions that affect a wide range of housing issues — from rental assistance to housing quality to redevelopment. It would also be required to report twice annually to the council, with a detailed report on wait lists, vacant unit turnover, instances of crime, and distribution of rent vouchers.

“Our public housing residents, voucher holders, and constituents deserve transparency, input, and our sustained commitment to comprehensive reforms that make certain our public housing authority delivers safe and decent housing to extremely and very low-income residents,” Pinto said.

Meanwhile, Bowser and Mendelson’s legislation proposed shrinking the board to a seven-member “stabilization and reform” board, as DCHA attempts to recover from the scathing federal audit, which outlined numerous failures in the agency’s management. The 72-page report, released in October by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, found that DCHA is not maintaining units in “decent, safe, and sanitary condition,” doesn’t manage an updated list of residents waiting for housing, and cannot accurately account for vacant units, among many other issues. The audit directed some of the blame to DCHA’s board of directors, accusing the seven members that were appointed by or serve Bowser of voting as a group “without individual of the action requested,” and asked that all members undergo extensive training on public management.

Bowser and Mendelson’s proposal would remove all but two of the board’s current members, both Bowser or Mendelson appointees: finance and investment specialist Melissa Lee and affordable housing advocate Raymond Skinner. Under the current board structure, Bowser nominates six of the members, and her Deputy Mayor of Economic Planning and Development, John Falcicchio, serves as a seventh member. The emergency legislation would have removed the three designated members who are supposed to live in public housing, and replaced them with a single representative of an umbrella organization of public housing resident councils — a move characterized as a “hostile takeover” by some housing advocates.

“I have talked to public housing experts, people who live in public housing, who rely on the public housing authority for vouchers, legal services experts…everyone who has reached out me or I’ve talked to who has an up close view of the housing authority is against the emergency legislation proposed by the mayor and the chairman,” Silverman said. “And that is because they believe there needs to be input and a much more comprehensive approach to reform the DCHA.”

Despite the fact that the legislation won’t actually go anywhere this year, Silverman said she and Pinto introduced it now — ahead of next week’s vote — to show that while the issue is pressing, there are alternatives to Bowser and Mendelson’s proposed emergency legislation.

“Certainly there’s an urgency in addressing the dysfunction at DCHA, but we need to get it right and we need to make sure that voices are heard,” Silverman said. “And it concerns me when those who’ve had an up close view of the DCHA — whether it’s the public housing finance experts, those who live in public housing, those legal services providers who represent public housing, the attorney general, all these folks have have reservations about the distillation proposed by the mayor and chairman. And I think that should give us pause.”

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