More than half a dozen local advocates slammed the November rollout of D.C.’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), calling the city’s approach to connecting residents with emergency support “chaotic,” at an oversight hearing late last month.
Multiple local organizations advocating for D.C.’s low-income and unhoused population, including Legal Council for the Elderly and The Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development, testified at a Feb. 26 Committee on Human Services hearing, criticizing the D.C. Department of Human Services’ (DHS) of an appointment-based system for ERAP. Advocates shared stories of individuals looking for assistance standing in long lines for hours when the program opened for applications on Nov. 20, only to be turned away when appointments ran out midway through the day.
“With less than two weeks’ notice, DHS replaced a long-standing online application system with an appointment-only process that forces residents to stand outside in the cold for hours or repeatedly calling phone lines that simply did not work,” said Sunny Desai, a managing attorney with Legal Counsel for the Elderly (LCE)…