Looking at price and availability of housing only gets at part of the story. The quality of that housing and its location are also critical.

Those households lucky enough to find an affordable home often face other challenges in those homes. The DC Housing Authority, the agency that manages the District’s public housing, has identified over 2,600 units of their own public housing that are in “extremely urgent need” of health and safety-related repairs. This affects over 5,000 residents. This isn’t just a public housing problem. Renters of below market-rate units across the city have reported rodent infestation, leaks, mold, and other unmet repair needs. While not every below market unit is plagued with these problems, and market-rate units can face similar conditions, the resources available to tenants with higher incomes allows them to either move or successfully fight against negligent landlords. Low-income communities often face higher barriers to taking care of these problems.

Relatedly, the location of housing affordable to low-income households perpetuates challenges these residents already face. The current stock of affordable housing is almost exclusively located east of Rock Creek Park, and highly concentrated east of the Anacostia River. This means low-income communities can only afford housing in neighborhoods that lack well-paying jobs, high-performing schools, reliable and regular public transportation, and grocery stores: all resources necessary for economic mobility. Overwhelming evidence from a wide range of studies agree that neighborhoods offering lower opportunity--access to the types of resources mentioned above--perpetuate cycles of poverty for already disadvantaged populations. In fact, the zip code in which a child is raised is the leading indicator of their adult income.

In Mayor Bowser’s second inaugural address, she called upon every neighborhood and every Ward to be part of the solution to the city’s lack of affordable housing. Yet, this segregation of housing affordable to low-income populations doesn’t seem to be changing in the housing pipeline. The vast majority of planned affordable housing is still being built east of 16th Street NW. Though these new areas of affordable housing development may be higher in opportunity than neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River, there is still significant disparity in income levels between neighborhoods on either side of Rock Creek Park. These areas east of the park where new affordable housing is being built still have significantly lower median incomes and higher rates of poverty, than those neighborhoods west of the park. Since median income and opportunity level of a child’s neighborhood has significant impact on their future, it is not enough to build housing in only these lower-income neighborhoods. Affordable housing is needed all throughout the city, especially in neighborhoods of Wards 2 and 3, where incomes and opportunity levels are highest.

To summarize, the location and condition of your home are critical to your health and well-being, but affordable housing is often located in places that provide inadequate opportunity for residents. And people of color are disproportionately affected by the lack of affordable housing options in the city.

DC is experiencing an affordable housing crisis. We can do better.