In July 2021, the city released Homeward DC 2.0, the city’s updated comprehensive plan to end homelessness. The plan outlines lessons learned over the last five years, current needs, and strategies to help us achieve the vision that homelessness in DC will be rare, brief, and nonrecurring and that we will eliminate racial inequities in the homeless services system and create systemic fair treatment for all people.
In order to achieve this vision, the plan outlines roles for key stakeholders including the Partnership to End Homelessness. While federal and local government resources are instrumental in this work, there is also an essential role for private philanthropy including individuals, foundations, and corporations. The Partnership to End Homelessness was created to leverage private philanthropy and align with public resources and strategies to create more nimble, strategic, and sustained investments in the homeless services system.
We are excited that both our federal and local government partners have made substantial and unprecedented investments in this work. However, even with these investments there are gaps that public funding cannot fill. In order to take advantage of these historic public sector investments, we must align the private sector to ensure that we leverage these resources for the future. We have an opportunity this year to make huge strides in our efforts to end homelessness. Join us in ensuring that we take advantage of this moment in time and don’t let this opportunity pass. Contact Jennifer Olney or Silvana Straw to find out how you can get involved today.
Celebrating Historic Investments in Ending Homelessness
This year, DC passed a budget with historic investments in housing justice. We are celebrating with our nonprofit advocacy partners who were instrumental in fighting for these investments that will end homelessness for 3,500 households including 2,370 individuals experiencing chronic homelessness. In order to quickly turn these investments into housing for our neighbors, we are working with our public and private sector partners to ensure our homeless response system is able to respond to this growth and move people into housing and out of homelessness as quickly as possible.
For more information about this year’s budget and where some of our advocacy partners are focusing next, read our partner Washington Legal Clinic’s budget recap.
Eviction Prevention: Protecting Low-Income Renters
Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the long-standing housing crisis and inequities in our country, and our right here in our Nation’s Capital. Thousands of tenants in the city are behind on rent and at imminent risk of eviction. It is estimated that 30,000 households are currently at risk of eviction. Both DC and the federal government have eviction moratoriums in place to protect tenants while they apply for available emergency rental assistance and other resources and supports. Unfortunately, those protections are already starting to phase out and evictions will resume.
The Community Foundation, along with the DC Bar Foundation, has been co-convening a group of key stakeholders including nonprofits, the courts, advocates, public officials, and landlords, to prevent immediate evictions and to create systems and policies that are more equitable and that ultimately lead to greater housing stability in DC.
We have also awarded a grant to Housing Counseling Services (HCS) to support a pilot community outreach program in Washington, DC with a priority on Wards 1, 4, 7 and 8. With this support, HCS will assist low-income tenants at risk of eviction in accessing emergency rental assistance and other services to maintain stable housing. HCS will partner with churches, schools, daycare centers, medical offices, and others to meet tenants where they live, learn, pray and play. HCS will also be present in the courts to help tenants apply for rental assistance and avoid evictions.
Partnership in Action: Preventing Evictions in Ivy City
In our most recent blog post, Leadership Council Co-Chair, David Roodberg from Horning Brothers, talks about an innovative partnership with Empower DC, one of our grantee partners. Together, they are working to support tenants to access rental assistance and maintain stable housing.
“Evictions aren’t good for anyone. STAY DC provides a win-win opportunity for landlords and tenants.”
-- David Roodberg, CEO and President, Horning Brothers
About the Partnership to End Homelessness
The Partnership to End Homelessness, led by the Greater Washington Community Foundation and the District Government’s Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH), brings together the public and private sectors to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring in DC. We believe that all DC residents deserve a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home.
By joining together, we will increase the supply of deeply affordable housing, help everyone find a home they can afford, and help more people access housing and exit homelessness more quickly.
Get Involved
Every action, whether large or small, can make a difference in ending homelessness. Visit EndHomelessnessDC.org to learn more.
This blog post is from the Partnership to End Homelessness newsletter. Sign up here to receive these quarterly updates.