Opinion | How D.C.'s voucher program makes the housing problem worse

correction

An earlier version of this editorial incorrectly stated the Department of Housing and Urban Development determined the D.C. Housing Authority was overpaying private building owners by 87 percent on housing vouchers for low-income residents. HUD did not determine an amount or percentage of overpayment; it asked DCHA to do so and submit a plan to reimburse the federal government. This version has been updated.

There is nothing new about reports of waste, inefficiency and poor living conditions in public housing and related federal low-income housing assistance programs. Hardly any housing authority in the country has been free of such issues. Even by that standard, however, the District of Columbia Housing Authority underperforms. That was the finding of a Department of Housing and Urban Development assessment, completed this past September, of the previous three years’ experience. The document laid out a litany of intolerable conditions in the 8,000-plus units, at 60 complexes, that DCHA owns and operates: lead-paint hazards, out-of-code plumbing, water damage, mold — and so much crime in some apartment buildings that tenants fear to accept offers of units there when they become vacant.

The HUD report also found fault with DCHA’s voucher programs. Unlike public housing, which DCHA operates itself, the voucher programs use money from HUD and D.C. itself to pay rent on behalf of low-income tenants in privately-owned buildings around the city. The agency is supposed to pay market rates, but the HUD report determined DCHA was not properly updating its data and appeared to be overpaying. HUD has asked DCHA to determine an amount of overpayment and submit a plan to reimburse the federal government.

A Feb. 16 Post article provided further — and alarming — detail about what these discrepancies mean in practice. The Post’s Steve Thompson and Dalton Bennett reported that DCHA often paid hundreds of dollars per unit per month — in one case the discrepancy was $1,000 — above neighborhood norms or even the landlord’s advertised rent. The total waste, spread across more than 4,000 leases the Post reporters analyzed, runs to more than $1 million per month. This not only squanders funds that could have helped house others, but it also has the perverse effect of creating upward pressure on rent generally, making it harder for other tenants to find affordable places to live. Many apartments paid for by vouchers have deteriorated, partly because the DCHA has failed to conduct regular inspections, and partly because some are occupied by formerly homeless tenants who are not getting services, such as behavioral health care, needed to adapt to apartment living.

Advertisement

Like many other governmental miscues, this one appears to have begun with good intentions. The DCHA boosted payments to landlords in the hope that this would induce more of them to open their buildings to voucher tenants. By now, however, some apartment owners have figured out that there’s easy money to be made from renting poorly maintained units at inflated rates to voucher holders, and are developing whole buildings for that purpose. DCHA Executive Director Brenda Donald told us that the agency is working on new payment standards, to be effectuated in the coming weeks, that comply with the law and HUD rules. Reasonably enough, she noted that the agency must avoid precipitous action that could result in a sudden loss of apartments from the voucher-paid market. Still, this is an issue that DCHA can and should be able to fix — soon.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7uK3SoaCnn6Sku7G70q1lnKedZLyxtc2ipqerX2d9c3%2BOaWloamRksaR51aisnKCVp3qxvs6gqZqlXZ28tr%2FIp55mm5%2BowbR7