You guys are overestimating the “corruption” here. Used to work directly with DCHA. And if anybody knows anything about them, they are lazy af and absolutely do not work. Once the lease is in place they have no incentive to get off their asses and reassess any market rate properties. Sometimes they go months without sending funds and have to send 3 months worth of rent at once.

They’re getting the shit back in RE taxes anyways so they don’t give a shit.

A fair point, and if the overpayment were the only issue with this whole thing, then we could probably learn to live with that. Unfortunately, the problems run so much deeper than just that. Right now, DC has created a system that incentivizes landlords to cash in without providing any other essential services whatsoever, setting the entire living arrangement up for failure. Much like the federal student loan system where colleges don't care about your ability to afford college or whether or not the quality of the education is worth the price of tuition. They can jack up tuition as high as they want and phone it in knowing they get their check from the government up front. Both systems rely on overpayment with the good intention of expanding access to those who could otherwise not afford it. But without actually accountability, this is how they inevitably end up.

The Green Line is sketchier than the others.

Shes about to get the boot it seems!

I lived in a rent controlled building in NE managed by a company listed in this article and am almost positive they were taking advantage of this program in the building I was in from 2018-2020. The building was recently renovated when I moved in, although I quickly learned that the renovations were done in a very sloppy manner.

After a couple of years, things really started to fall apart and tenants that moved in after renovations quickly moved out. I stuck it out through the end of 2020 when I noticed the type of tenant moving into the building started to rapidly change. A chain smoking drug user moved into the apartment across from mine and rapidly destroyed the apartment. Her behavior was so erratic that I called the social work crisis line a couple of times after she spent hours running up and down the hallway without any apparent purpose.

Anyways, by the time I gave notice, the management company was so eager for me to move out that the property manager told me to not worry about cleaning up the apartment and I would get a full return of my security deposit so long as no major appliances were missing. Based on the entirety of my experience with the property management company, I expected they’d screw me on the security deposit, but I wound up getting the entire amount mailed to me a few weeks after I moved out.

*has expressly and unironically killed cops who did this

Very well stated. And yes, the problem is absolutely the government and not the voucher recipients. DCHA is failing absolutely everyone except for the landlords/developers.

Here's the thing, landlords don't have to accept vouchers. They can give the middle finger to DC government and rent their apartment to people with money.

So you kinda have to overpay on units. DC might be going too high, but this is the problem with vouchers. Landlords need to accept them, and there is zero requirement for them to do so.

I'm finally moving out from a building in Cleveland Park under DARO/Borger management, who are well known for their relationship with the voucher program. They are the ones who recently got in a huge amount of trouble for more voucher misconduct. Props to WaPo for continuing to cover this so well. This new article does a good job of explaining the mechanism behind how landlords actually milk the program.

I could rant for hours about my experience living at the Parkway, but I don't want to dump a laundry list here of complaints and crazy stuff that we've seen or had to deal with. This building is nuts. We have incidents almost daily. However, people will use these problems as ammo to build prejudices against voucher recipients and disdain for the system as a whole, and I don't think that's fair. It's misdirected anger. After living in this building for years and learning so many of their stories, the voucher system has done a lot of good for a lot of people. It's a very flawed system; a good idea mired with flawed execution. And the solution to many of its problems is to further strengthen the system, not strip it of its utility.

After living here for 4 years, I've seen 2 main issues with the voucher program:

1. The city does not provide enough follow through and support for voucher residents. Flat out. Some of these people are coming in with severe mental health issues and drug/alcohol addictions. Some people are even coming in with very little personal belongings - no furniture, no place to sit, etc. These people need more help. They are not set up for success.

2. The landlords that so egregiously take advantage of the system (as outlined in the article) also need to follow through on handling the day-to-day incidents that arise from taking on so many individuals that may have severe problems. Not only that, they need to do a better job of dealing with the select few individuals who are a nexus from where an overwhelming majority of the problems stem from.

I think if landlords are going to try and cash in on the voucher system, then they need to step up and actually create a more safe & hospitable place for all residents, vouchers and non-vouchers alike. That in itself is where the greed lies. If landlords load up on voucher recipients to make extra money but then also have to pay a bunch for security, extra maintenance, etc., then their profit motive is diminished. They can make more money by caring less about the safety and living conditions, leading to the chaos that is notorious in some of these buildings.

It’s Babby’s First City for people from around the country, many of whom are here for work and otherwise would not have ever moved out of the creche. Some of them can’t handle it at all and basically go full Rahowa immediately, if they weren’t already on that path.

All of them are redditors.

DCHA’s analysis of what “fair market rent” constitutes is also comical though. For example, they pay the same rent amounts for a property in Georgetown as they do in Eckington.

https://www.dchousing.org/vue/customer/rent.aspx

They actually added a home to it. The first home is the same

Great proposal spot

The number of perverse incentives that landlords have to be as shitty as possible is out of control. I know it's bad here but it's like this in every city; at some point this country just decided to sell out to slumlords for some reason

>New yearly funding for housing vouchers and subsidies, cash support for low-income families, and increased pay for early childhood educators $ 161,000,000

Looks like if we follow the money, it may lead back to Brianne "crime doesn't exist" Nadeau.

Guh. I hate developers who break up homes, they are the worst. I do like when they develop corner lots and leave them as SFH - not divided up multi-family dwellings. Those are the worst!

>Referenced event can be seen
>
>here
>
>. Note: You can literally see she had been crying.

Then explain why she was crying recently?

I don’t flip houses, I just live near this one and walk by it all the time. I’ve been in the first house years ago before it was sold to a developer. It was a normal, nice standard smaller townhome on a nice corner lot. Now it is what it is

Ahh that solves it. I was waiting to see if you noticed it random person. Must be made up.

Right. This *IS* Anita Bonds fault. No one elses. We need a targeted campaign to make her - and Vincent Gray - to encourage her to resign.

Sad that a lot of liberals share these opinions too

>nd then extended the upper floor over the other house. I have no idea what the inside looks like as the one unit was newly constructed but it’s got 2 AC units and now window units in all the rooms. It was absolutely constructed this way for the per bedroom situation.

You flip houses? We might need to talk. Looking to purchase later this year!

I love it when small government don't tread on me libertarians defend the cops.

Any regulations on me or railroad companies transporting WW1 era WMDs is tyranny and oppression. Gunning down "those people" is law and order.

Disclaimer: This is highly speculative but it might explain things.

Ah, yes, Executive Director of District of Columbia Public Housing, Brenda Donald, looked as if she had just had a good cry at a recent public event. I could not put my finger on it, as this was a celebratory event, I kept thinking why would she look so sad. This article MIGHT explain why she had been crying: most likely the Mayor let her know the article was coming out and she would need to resign.

Referenced event can be seen here. Note: You can literally see she had been crying.

Correct. Here are the requirements from DCHA. See the last bulletpoint. A bedroom pretty much just needs to be over 70 square feet. It mentions "living spaces" needing two means of egress (door & window), but not bedrooms specifically.