From reporter Steve Thompson:

The apartment is a time capsule. In the fridge, still plugged in and running, sits a mostly empty package of Oscar Mayer deli meat dated May 2019. The freezer holds a 16-pound turkey — best if used by June 29, 2019.

On the living room floor lies a composition book filled by a girl who lived in Unit #32. Her name means princess, the girl wrote, and her favorite person is her baby sister.

In the three years since, D.C. Housing Authority officials moved no one else in, as more than 20,000 people languished on a frozen waiting list for public housing.

It’s among the more than one in four of D.C.’s roughly 8,000 public housing units that sit vacant, at an average length of about two years, agency records reveal. Nationwide, public housing occupancy rates average 95 percent. DCHA’s is the lowest it has ever experienced, even as the District’s long-running affordable housing crisis intensifies and more people find themselves priced out of decent homes.

The occupancy decline underscores entrenched troubles at the agency tasked with housing some of the District’s poorest residents. The city’s largest landlord, the authority serves about 30,000 households through housing vouchers and mixed-finance and traditional public housing properties.

The vacancies cost more than $10 million annually in forgone rent and federal subsidies, according to a federal housing department estimate, and they drag down communities the authority is supposed to serve. Their boarded-up doors and windows are often pried loose and attract crime, and residents say the trash left behind fuels roach and rodent infestations.

Brenda Donald, who has been director for about 16 months, has blamed the worsening vacancies on her predecessor while pledging to make it her top priority. “I’ve run big, complex systems, and they don’t get broken overnight, and you can’t fix them overnight,” Donald said in a recent interview.

But her own goals have not been met. In March, as the occupancy rate stood at 79 percent, Donald pledged to raise it 10 percentage points by the end of September. Instead, it has fallen below 74 percent.

That’s the lowest of any large housing authority in the country, according to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that slammed DCHA for poor management. The report demands the agency significantly improve occupancy and other issues or risk defaulting on its agreement with the federal government.

Among its findings: dangerous conditions, including lead-paint hazards; out-of-code plumbing; water damage and mold; emergency work orders going unaddressed at night due to high crime; and prospective tenants declining units because they fear for their safety.

In a building near Unit #32, intruders ripped away the plywood sealing a vacant unit and kicked in the door. There’s a small bed inside, and clothes are strewn about. More than a dozen used condoms have been tossed into the once-white bathtub.

“I have reported this door being open, but they’re not doing anything about it,” said Nakia Blackmone, whose apartment is steps away from the vacant unit. “People are just coming in and out, and in and out, and I don’t feel safe where I live.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/10/19/dc-public-housing-vacancy-spirals/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=reddit.com

> The occupancy decline underscores entrenched troubles at the agency tasked with housing some of the District’s poorest residents. The city’s largest landlord, the authority serves about 30,000 households through housing vouchers and mixed-finance and traditional public housing properties.

> The vacancies cost more than $10 million annually in forgone rent and federal subsidies, according to a federal housing department estimate, and they drag down communities the authority is supposed to serve. Their boarded-up doors and windows are often pried loose and attract crime, and residents say the trash left behind fuels roach and rodent infestations.

u/washingtonpost this isn’t in the article but is DCHA trying to exit public housing in favor of other low-income rental subsidy programs?

Do peer countries have these issues? Genuine question if anyone knows.

I’ve gone to the Housing Authority in NoMa multiple times to try to get help with housing assistance but three different ladies all just told me that they don’t offer any more housing assistance and that’s it. They didn’t look into other resources or try to get more information from me. They just went back to whatever they were doing and I was pretty lost. Part of me is glad that place closed cuz I like to think they all lost their jobs but I’m sure they’re just in a different department, doing the same shit without consequence.

I remember seeing NYCHA had some problems too, but not as bad as this. HUD has called DCHA one of the worst in the country.

It's probably no surprise to anyone that the committee that oversees this is chaired by the worst council member, Anita Bonds

Edit to add: HUD says that the 76% occupancy rate for DCHA properties is the lowest in the whole country.

> more than one in four of D.C.’s roughly 8,000 public housing units that sit vacant, at an average length of about two years

So 2,000 empty units, temporarily.

That's a drop in the bucket compared to demand. We could put tons and tons of resources into getting those 2,000 units filled a few months faster, at great expense, and it would make no discernible difference to the overall issue.

Maybe we should do that. It would help 2,000 people. Fine. But don't pretend like this is an argument against the massive need for more housing units in the region. All of these unfilled units put together add up to like 1% of the need.

Genuinely asking. Who is saying this is an argument against the need for more housing?

There's loud opposition to new housing everywhere, and a common talking points among housing opponents are that there are lots of empty units. I don't have examples of people citing this article because it's new, but anticipate that it will happen, and am pre-emptively saying it will be BS if/when it does.

From what I've heard it seems like a few cities in the west have already started to burst the housing and renting cost bubble. Its only a matter of time until it hits the eastern US.

One downside to allocating housing based on “need” like this, is it creates a lot of bureaucracy and work to qualify someone who is eligible because you’re using bureaucracy to ration a limited resource rather than price.

If you’re a market rate owner you set the price and run a credit, income and reference check and that’s it.

This same issue applies to IZ units as well. I genuinely think the way to go is just flat subsidies and also remove a lot of the red tape around vouchers. Even better, expand the EITC instead and continue working to significantly liberalize zoning so construction can catch up to demand.

I’d hate to be in the job of running DCHA as I imagine it’s 100x as hard as running a similarly sized portfolio of market rate units bc of all the red tape associated with every aspect of the business.

HUD cited DC for incompetence.

> It's probably no surprise to anyone that the committee that oversees this is chaired by the worst council member, Anita Bonds

And don't forget those appointments are made by the chairman.

DC really needs to get on the RAD bandwagon and take advantage of the private/public partnership. Not long ago, they started self-managing communities that were well run by private management companies. It seems to have gone downhill from there.

Yet if anyone have a drug addiction or have multiple children as a single parent, they WILL bend over backwards to help them

I’m addicted to weed but I didn’t get a chance to let them know lol

That was first thought. Brenda Donald has no discernible experience in real estate management. She has a bunch of somewhat gobbledy gook sounding non profit and political appointments, incestuously floating around local DC and MD government for decades. Just outsource this to the private sector that knows how to manage real estate effectively.

I mean, speaking as class C multifamily AM, it really wouldn't take that much investment to fix this issue. If they cut the bullshit they'd probably fill these units for cheaper than what they're currently paying to "vet" the applicants.

I thought DCHA was, at least partially. I thought Park Morton was a RAD property because it’s going from public housing to mixed income. There’s a lot to unpack with RAD, though, and IIRC, a cap on unit conversions at any given time (don’t want to convert everything then find out unexpected issues).

This certainly seems to scream redevelopment via attrition. They allow the properties to degrade to a point of inhabitability, refuse to allow new tenants on that premise(s), demolish, rezone as mixed use, and profit. In the eyes of DCHA, a $10 million short-term annual loss is excusable for the profit mixed use developments will bring on those properties.

What would a flat subsidy do?