Since Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed her fiscal year 2027 budget in April, lawmakers and homelessness advocates have scrambled to avoid her proposed cut of hundreds of housing vouchers. In its first budget vote, the D.C. Council has found the answer — for now.
On June 8, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson announced he was adding more than $400 million to the budget. The majority comes from savings via decoupling the city’s tax code from the federal tax code. Some of this money went to an increase of $28.2 million in funding to the Department of Human Services and D.C. Housing Authority to support 469 existing housing vouchers. Additionally, the budget will fund 190 vouchers for families exiting Rapid Rehousing and set aside $1.7 million to help voucher holders with security deposits.
“Many of these people, young and old, families, kids, grandparents, would have become homeless,” Councilmember Robert White, who chairs the Committee on Housing, said at the June 9 vote. “The council stepped up.”…