The presidents of eight tenant associations in Ward 3, including the Van Ness South Tenants Association, today sent a letter to DC Housing Authority Deputy Director Victor Martinez, following up on issues raised on a recent video meeting with him concerning the agency’s extremely high approved rents for housing vouchers.

The following is an excerpt from the letter, which also appears in printer-friendly form at this link.

“As we explained during our brief meeting, these high rates have distorted the market, given housing providers incentives to prefer voucher holders over non-voucher holders, wasted money that could serve others who need housing assistance, cheated taxpayers, and created windfall profits for housing providers. In addition, the extremely high approved rents drive up rents on residents who don’t have housing vouchers, including seniors on fixed incomes, working- and middle-class renters, graduate and undergraduate students, and others. As a result, some of them will be driven out of Rock Creek West.”

“We appreciate your offer to create a working group for residents of apartment buildings like those we represent. However, we also are deeply concerned that renters, who have suffered from the extremely damaging effects of the very high approved rents, were not included in the first place. As we stated in initial communications with Mayor Bowser and with DCHA, we think it is critical that we have a seat at the table with other stakeholders to enable fair and open discussion of the issues. Both renters and non-absentee condominium owners should have equal representation with the other stakeholders. Our understanding from our meeting is that you strongly agree that these groups should have equal representation with the others.”