The District Columbia’s Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) provides financing and other assistance to a majority of the private affordable housing providers active in the city. In June 2020, the agency sent a survey to individuals associated in its records with the projects it finances. The survey proposed to get better insight into how affordable housing providers and their tenants were faring, their expectations for the coming year, and conditions at specific properties. This report discusses the responses we received about affordable housing provider’s operations, their expectations for the coming year, and what assistance was needed. DHCD is using the project-by project data internally to better understand the impact of the pandemic and to inform policy options.

The COVID-19 public health emergency has had a dramatic and negative impact on our economy.  Thousands of people being laid off and thousands more seeing their work hours diminish. These trends raise significant concerns about the housing stability of the District’s households and by extension the financial health of its residential properties.

Affordable housing providers serve low-income households, which in the District are disproportionately made up of elderly and Black residents and include many low-wage and essential workers who are unable to stay home. These are also the households that thus far have proven most vulnerable to contracting the virus. For these reasons, affordable housing providers stand in the crosshairs of the pandemic.