As recently as Presidents Day, 4801 Connecticut was advertising its one-bedroom apartments to prospective renters for $1,700 per month. According to a Washington Post investigation, the DC Housing Authority is subsidizing nearly two dozen renters in similar 4801 apartments, and in each case is paying $2,648 per month. The difference: nearly $1,000. Not all overpayments are this large, but the Post says DCHA is paying rents in excess of market rates on 4,000 units across the District. And the cost to DCHA and its housing affordability efforts? Millions of dollars each year.
“DCHA has a set of [rent] price caps according to neighborhood and bedroom quantity,” reporters Steve Thompson and Dalton Bennett write. And DC and federal laws require DCHA to check the rents it’s offering to pay landlords against market prices. However:
In practice, if a landlord asks for the cap, that’s what DCHA pays — regardless of market price, The Post found, and [DCHA Director Brenda] Donald acknowledged in her interview.
The agency pays these caps for a quarter of its voucher contracts…. In many cases, DCHA pays the caps regardless of whether tenants in the same building who don’t have vouchers pay far less. [emphasis added]
The Post’s reporting also touches on an issue Connecticut Avenue tenant leaders have been trying to raise with DC leaders and agency heads for some time: that excessive rent subsidies incentivize landlords to favor voucher holders over renters who do not qualify for subsidies. They even warned Mayor Muriel Bowser, during a meeting we reported on last June. The tenant leaders said the mayor agreed to state explicitly that meeting her affordable housing goals “[do] not entail ‘converting’ existing rent-stabilized units into means-tested units.”
And as we reported last April, then-Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Chris Geldart told ANC 3F that the system “ain’t working,” between overpayments turning some apartment buildings into “de facto public housing,” and formerly homeless residents in need of extensive services finding little or none.
Since the Post published its investigation online on February 15th, two of the newspaper’s opinion columnists have weighed in. “[T]he millions of dollars they are wasting every year could go to help some of the tens of thousands of residents who have long been waiting and hoping for housing assistance,” Theresa Vargas writes.
And Colbert I. King writes of “the D.C. Housing Authority’s single-handed contribution to the city’s affordable housing crisis.”
Rent hikes ahead: Renters in DC’s – and this neighborhood’s – many rent-stabilized apartment buildings will be getting notices of a 8.9 percent rent increase in the coming weeks and months. And it’s not because their landlords have suddenly gone rogue.
Blame last year’s inflation spike. The intention of DC’s “rent-control” law is to prevent arbitrary and excessive annual rent hikes in older apartment buildings, and provide a measure of predictability and affordability regardless of the residents’ incomes (when landlords don’t try to skirt the law).
The formula is based on the federal government’s inflation index for urban areas, the CPI-W. In 2022, CPI-W increased by 6.9 percent, the most in decades. Landlords can add another 2 percent to that, and from May 1, 2023 through April 30, 2024, the Rental Housing Commission says they can impose a one-time rent increase of as much as 8.9 percent. That’s the largest annual rent increase since the law took effect in 1985.
The maximum rent increase for the year beginning May 1 will be 8.9% for most people in rent-stabilized buildings. That’s a huge jump. While landlords will imply that the increase is mandated, that’s not true – it’s the maximum. https://t.co/Iecdl0xYTX
— vnsta3003 (@vnsta3003) January 27, 2023
Renters 62 years old or older, and those with disabilities can limit their rent hike to 5 percent during the May-through-April period if they meet certain income requirements, live in one of these apartment buildings constructed prior to 1976, AND are registered with the District’s rent administrator. You’ll find the application form and instructions here.
Harry Gural says
The extreme overpayments confirm what tenant advocates have been saying for months — that DCHA and District policies regarding housing vouchers are designed to benefit developers and the rental housing industry, not voucher recipients.
HUD guidelines state that such overpayments waste taxpayer money, squander resources needed for low-income housing subsidies, and drive up rents on non-voucher recipients. In Cleveland Park / Van Ness / Forest Hills / Chevy Chase, DCHA sets the maximum allowable rate on a one-bedroom apartment with utilities at $2,648. This means that voucher recipients can afford to rent luxury apartments that are far better than the “average” (median) apartments in the area. However, more often they are guided to buildings where the rents are much lower, but DCHA still pays the much higher, maximum amount. It’s all gravy for the Real Estate Investment Trusts and for absentee landlords.
These severe overpayments discriminate against non-voucher recipients, who must compete for apartments with voucher recipients who can pay $500 or more above market prices. They also incentivize landlords to ignore severe maintenance and security problems in their buildings, pressuring long-term residents, particularly the seniors who occupy a large number of apartments in the buildings along Connecticut Avenue, to move out in what may be “constructive eviction.” The apartments can be filled with voucher recipients, who can afford to pay much higher rents.
This dynamic is further exacerbated by the Bowser administration’s offer of additional financial incentives to landlords and developers who “convert” market-rate apartment buildings into means-tested, low-income housing. This achieves a long-term goal of some powerful players in the rental housing industry by weakening rent stabilization, the DC law which limits annual rent increases in buildings constructed before 1975 to inflation plus 2% (or just inflation for those who are disabled or over age 62). It turns “affordable housing” into big business, while making housing less affordable for many Washingtonians.
Meanwhile, DCHA allows public housing properties to go to ruin or sells them off to developers, while it converts apartment buildings into quasi-public housing, with the majority of units occupied by individuals who have experienced homelessness. A substantial share of those individuals suffers from substance abuse or behavioral disorders, but they don’t receive adequate help in residential settings, if they receive help at all. This is a gross violation of the principle of “Housing First,” which does not require program participants to accept help, but requires that such help be easily available.
In some of the large apartment buildings along Connecticut Avenue, voucher recipients, many of them exiting homelessness, occupy a majority of the total units. A shocking 2019 story in the Washington Post about Sedgwick Gardens apartments in Cleveland Park (https://wapo.st/34d48r3) found this experiment to be a disaster. However, instead of rethinking its policies, DCHA and the Bowser administration vastly expanded them. There are now more than 10 apartment buildings with conditions like those at Sedgwick Gardens between Cleveland Park and Chevy Chase.
Those who live on the side streets off Connecticut Avenue and elsewhere in the city should not think that they will not be affected by this severely misguided public policy.
It is important for government to play a role in making adequate housing more affordable to low-income families, especially those who have suffered from homelessness. However, the policy of DCHA and the Bowser administration of severely overpaying for apartments detracts from that goal, because it provides windfall profits to the rental housing industry, because it is disdainful of modest- and middle-income residents, particularly seniors, and because the abuses are so extreme and so vivid that they will create effective talking points for those who oppose government attempts to help low-income families and individuals.
The recent Washington Post story about DCHA’s extreme, systematic overpayments for apartments rented to voucher recipients is just the tip of the iceberg — there is much more to be uncovered. Let’s hope that the rest of the media dig into the story, following the example of the Post and the early reporting by the Forest Hills Connection. And it’s time for those who have remained silent to speak out.
Green Eyeshades says
This is a severe over-reaction to what the Post found. The overpayments for voucher contracts are a small minority (25%) of all voucher contracts that the Post investigated. See my first comment below yours.
There is no proof in the Post investigation of your claim that “[t]hese severe overpayments discriminate against non-voucher recipients ….” or that “[t]he apartments can be filled with voucher recipients, who can afford to pay much higher rents.” The overpayments the Post found are, by definition, only overpayments because they are above the median, not “severe” high amounts and not “much higher rents” than rent controlled rents.
Aside from the Sedgewick, you offer zero evidence for your claim that “[i]n some of the large apartment buildings along Connecticut Avenue, voucher recipients, many of them exiting homelessness, occupy a majority of the total units.” Where is your evidence? What did you “investigate?” What buildings are you writing about? How many voucher users occupy those buildings? How many rental units are in those buildings?
Harry Gural says
The Post article states that DCHA “pays these caps for a quarter of its voucher contracts.” The cap set by DCHA for Forest Hills is $2,648 for a one-bedroom with utilities.
The overpayments are not, as the author claims, trivial. The Post estimates that they add up to approximately $1 million *per month.* This likely is a very conservative estimate, based on comparisons with inflated calculations by industry-insider Novogradac.
Even by the Post’s conservative estimate, this means overpayments by $12 million per year. This has been going on since at least 2019. Overpayments in past years likely were lower because the programs have increased over time. However, even taking that into consideration, that means tens of millions of dollars in overpayments.
In its audit of DCHA, HUD says that it wants to be reimbursed for overpayments out of non-federal funds. DCHA is facing a crisis.
Green Eyeshades says
Green Eyeshades never said the overpayments for voucher contracts are “trivial.” But simple arithmetic does show that if 4,127 voucher contracts generate only one million dollars per month in overpayments, that is only $242.31 per month per voucher contract (only $2,908 per year per voucher contract). Those are emphatically not “severe” overpayments or “much higher” rents than allowed by DCHA and HUD rules, regs. and laws. Those are marginal overpayments.
The sky is not falling. The voucher program will not destroy rent control or force tenants who enjoy rent control to suffer constructive evictions when the overpayments, on average, are less than $250 per month per voucher.
However, the fact that the sky is not falling does not mean that DCHA is not corrupt. If the DC Attorney General can find evidence of corrupt intent in some or all of the 4,127 voucher contracts that involve overpayments of rent, the Attorney General should do his job and investigate for fraud those who committed those overpayments and received those overpayments, including investigating DCHA executives and employees if the evidence warrants it.
HUD should also demand reimbursement of the $12 million per year that the Post found is being overpaid for the 4,127 voucher contracts.
But in none of the cases of overpayments for voucher contracts will the tenants who benefit from the vouchers lose their voucher or lose their housing. It’s only a question of the amount of rent. Tenants who use vouchers have legal rights to use vouchers and to remain in their rental units, regardless of how much corruption DCHA and developers and landlords may be guilty of.
Green Eyeshades says
Excellent reporting by the Connection! Thank you for covering the Post investigation so thoroughly.
The Connection pointed out quite accurately that the Post found that only one quarter of all the voucher contracts it examined showed overpayments of rent. The Post obtained data on 16,500 voucher contracts under the FOIA, and found only “more than 4,000” voucher contracts involved overpayments. That is how the Post arrived at its conclusion that “one quarter” of the voucher contracts involved overpayments.
This is the key paragraph in the Post investigation:
“In response to a Freedom of Information Act request, DCHA provided The Post data on 16,506 voucher contracts, which, in addition to ‘tenant-based’ vouchers, included some of the agency’s more than 3,000 ‘project-based’ vouchers tied to specific developments, DCHA officials said. To understand how much money DCHA may lose to paying rents that are above market medians, The Post analyzed data on more than 4,000 leases for which DCHA pays above the estimated median market rent for that unit’s bedroom quantity in that neighborhood. The Post found that DCHA spends more than $1 million dollars a month for these units over the estimated neighborhood market medians.”
In other words, the Post found “more than 4,000 leases for which DCHA pays above the estimated median …,” out of the 16,506 voucher contracts it examined. One quarter of 16,506 is 4,126.5, so we can round up the Post’s number of 4,000 to 4,127.
Such a small minority (25%) of voucher contracts cannot and will not, by themselves, threaten the rental housing market. The conservative DC Policy Center estimated that 126,000 housing units in the District are rentals. (Link to follow.) Compared to those 126,000 units, the 4,127 voucher contracts involving overpayments are a tiny minority (three point three percent).
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that DC has over 357,000 housing units, and only 41.5% of those are owner-occupied! (Link to follow.) Assuming that 45% are owner-occupied (more than the Census estimates), 55% are occupied by renters, which means tenants occupy over 196,000 housing units in the District. Again, compared to those more than one hundred ninety six thousand tenants, the 4,127 voucher contracts that the Post found to involve overpayments of rent represent only two point one percent of all rental housing units.
The Post editors very carefully omitted from their headlines on the investigation that only one quarter of the voucher contracts involve improper overpayments. That enabled the Post’s “perspective” and “opinion” columnists to piggy-back on the investigation and whip up the controversy, also without revealing that the overpayments involve only a minority (25%) of all voucher contracts which cover, by themselves, only a tiny two percent or three percent of all rental housing units in the District.
Harry Gural says
The claim that the severe overpayments do not affect rents also is wrong. HUD is quoted in the Post story saying that overpaying drives up market rents in certain submarkets.
Let’s put it another way. If a car dealer produced only a limited number of cars that usually sell for $25,000, and a new pool of buyers could easily afford to buy cars for $30,000 without paying any additional money out-of-pocket, what would happen to the price of cars?
Green Eyeshades says
There is no “claim” in any of my comments that “overpayments do not affect rents.” I didn’t make “claims” I restated what the Post found and applied simple arithmetic.
You can do the math. If 4,127 voucher contracts with rent overpayments generated total overpayments of one million dollars per month, those 4,127 voucher contracts made overpayments averaging only $242.31 per month, which is only $2,908 per year. That amount of overpayment per voucher contract is far too small to drive the rental market in any particular building, let alone in an entire neighborhood like Forest Hills.
Green Eyeshades says
Your comment at 12:55 pm mischaracterized the Post article when you wrote “HUD is quoted in the Post story saying that overpaying drives up market rents in certain submarkets.” That is not true.
First of all, it was not “HUD” making that statement in HUD’s official report to DCHA, but a single HUD employee who was giving a webinar for housing officials last summer.
Secondly, that one HUD employee did not say that “overpaying drives up” the rents, he said “you could potentially alter certain private submarkets over time with inflated rents ….”
Third, you left out the part where the Post reported that you and other tenant association leaders sent a letter to the head of DCHA which mentioned “very high subsidies” but the head of DCHA told you that your letter to her was false.
This is what the Post wrote:
” ‘Each unit needs to be reviewed on its own merits to make sure the asking rent is appropriate when looking at comparable units,’ Brendan Goodwin, a HUD housing program specialist, said in August during a webinar for housing officials.
“One risk of approving rents that are too high, Goodwin said, ‘is that you could potentially alter certain private submarkets over time with inflated rents, and that could have a really harmful impact on families in your communities that don’t have vouchers.’
“Longtime residents of buildings along Connecticut Avenue in Northwest D.C. say this is happening there. ‘The very high subsidies incentivize landlords to lease more and more apartments to voucher holders because they can charge so much more than individuals without vouchers can afford,’ said a letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) last year from the leaders of five tenant associations.
Donald emailed the letter’s author, Harry Gural, in August and accused him of voicing a ‘false narrative.’ “
Harry Gural says
Green Eyeshades claims that only one HUD employee said that when a public agency like DCHA overpays it can drive up rents. That is false — it is written into the HUD policy manual (https://bit.ly/rent-reasonableness).
Secondly, he misses one of the main points of the Post story — that DCHA Executive Director Brenda Donald’s claim that tenant leaders were spreading a “false narrative” (that DCHA was overpaying), is itself false. Tenant leaders were correct — DCHA was and is overpaying by millions of dollars — and that has serious, deleterious effects on rent prices, other renters, residents of apartment buildings, and in some cases entire neighborhoods.
Green Eyeshades says
The HUD “HOUSING CHOICE VOUCHER PROGRAM GUIDEBOOK” has a single chapter titled “Rent Reasonableness.” The Rent Reasonableness chapter is an excellent official source.
Anyone who thinks DCHA is overpaying rents for voucher contracts in our neighborhood or Ward should understand all of the details of the Rent Reasonableness chapter before jumping to conclusions.
The PDF of the Rent Reasonableness chapter (only 16 pages, 527 KB) is posted here on HUD’s website, but it is undated so may not reflect all recent changes in regulations:
https://www.hud.gov/sites/dfiles/PIH/documents/HCV_Guidebook_Rent_Reasonableness.pdf
The “Glossary” for the rent reasonableness guide (PDF p.9) states in full as follows:
“The following terms are used in this Chapter:
“Assisted Units include units occupied by voucher program participants, as well as units assisted under a federal, state, or local government program. Units may also be considered ‘assisted’ due to rent control or housing conversion actions. The PHA must exclude “assisted” units from rent comparisons in determining rent reasonableness.
“Fair Market Rent (FMR) is the rent, including the cost of utilities (except telephone), as established by HUD for units of varying sizes (by number of bedrooms), that must be paid in the housing market area to rent privately owned, existing, decent, safe and sanitary rental housing of modest (non-luxury) nature with suitable amenities. See periodic publications in the Federal Register in accordance with 24 C.F.R. Part 888.
“Jurisdiction is the area in which the PHA has authority under state and local law to administer the program.
“Reasonable Rent is rent to owner that is not more than rent charged:
“1. For comparable units in the private unassisted market; and
“2. For comparable unassisted units in the premises.”
The “chapter overview” for the Rent Reasonabless chapter states the following on PDF page two (footnotes omitted):
“PHAs must ensure that rents charged by owners to Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program participants are reasonable. The PHA must compare the rent for the voucher unit to rents for similar unassisted units in the marketplace.
“Ensuring rent reasonableness is very important for effective program operations. If a PHA approves rents that are too high, government funds are wasted and limited housing subsidies are squandered. Alternatively, if rents are approved at levels lower than comparable units in the private market, better owners and higher quality units are discouraged from participating in the program. In addition, families may be inappropriately restricted in where they can live.
“Determining rent reasonableness is especially critical when a PHA uses its authority to set a payment standard higher than the FMR for all or a portion of its jurisdiction. Some owners will apply pressure to increase their rents to, or closer to, the payment standard. PHAs should be careful to not overpay, or the effect will be to inflate rents in a portion of the market.”
In my opinion, it is clear that the Rent Reasonableness chapter says that apartments under rent control are deemed “assisted” units and rents payable for voucher contracts should NOT be compared to rents payable for rent-controlled apartments when determining reasonableness of rents under voucher contracts.
That is what this portion of the Glossary means: “Units may also be considered ‘assisted’ due to rent control or housing conversion actions. The PHA must exclude “assisted” units from rent comparisons in determining rent reasonableness.”
Anyone comparing rents payable under voucher contracts with rents paid for rent-controlled apartments to claim that DCHA is engaging in “extreme overpayments” or “severe overpayments” fundamentally misunderstand HUD’s policy for determining rent reasonableness.
Also, nobody has offered any evidence that DCHA is offering landlords more than the median rents for one bedroom, two bedroom, three bedroom or four bedroom apartments in Forest Hills, when compared to the median rents for those units reported by DCHA’s consultant “Novogradac” quoted in my comment posted Feb. 25 at 12:43 pm.
Travis Lee Price III, FAIA says
As a reminder, the added so-called city payments are not simply the city, its the citizens paying more taxes. All the more reason to go slower and see if this is the right path at all.
Green Eyeshades says
Link to DC Policy Center estimate:
https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/appraising-the-districts-rentals-chapter-ii/
Link to Census Bureau estimate:
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/DC
George Hofmann says
A very welcome report.
Sometimes government policies that are well-intended have unfortunate, even damaging, side effects. Here a big effort has resulted in too little good, at too great a cost.
Green Eyeshades says
Our new Ward 3 Councilmember, Matt Frumin, wrote this in his email newsletter “Ward 3 Updates” on February 23:
“A recent article in the Washington Post confirmed what many already knew: the DC Housing Authority (DCHA) often overpays landlords for low-income housing vouchers because it does not reliably verify fair market rates for the units. This is yet another reminder of the pressing need to improve transparency and accountability at the agency. DCHA is plagued by failures to provide public housing residents with safe, clean, stable, and dignified housing. I intend to use my seat on the Housing Committee to press for change at this important but flawed agency. Addressing other facets of the various voucher programs will be a challenging project requiring robust engagement with tenant associations, advocates, and service providers.
“It is important that we provide our unhoused neighbors with intentional support, new opportunities, and stable housing. ‘Housing first’ means something must come next. One element of any response is to ensure wraparound services for residents who need them. My FY24 budget priorities proposed more than $56 million in investments in behavioral health programs. Many of these new funding streams could support more impactful wraparound services.
“I remain committed to forging solutions to the issues outlined in the Post and the concerns raised by Ward 3 neighbors.”
In my opinion, it is noteworthy that our Councilmember did not describe the overpayments of rents as “extreme” or “severe” or “extreme, systematic,” as they were described in the first February 21 comment on this blogpost at 10:00 a.m. Our Councilmember also did not claim that DCHA’s “overpayments discriminate against non-voucher recipients” or pose any kind of threat to rent control.
Green Eyeshades says
Washington Post’s editorial board opined about DCHA overpayments of rent under voucher contracts:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/02/24/dc-voucher-program-housing-costs/
In that editorial, this sentence jumps out at the casual reader:
“The agency is supposed to pay market rates, but the HUD report determined DCHA was not properly updating its data and appeared to be overpaying to the tune of 87 percent above market.”
What the Post wrote about the 87% markup would lead a casual reader to assume that HUD found that DCHA’s overpays rent for all or most of its voucher contracts by 87%. But that is not what HUD found. (Link to HUD’s September 2022 report will follow.)
This is HUD’s finding on this topic, finding “HCV 3” (for “Housing Choice Vouchers”), at pages 45-46 of the HUD report:
“DCHA does not update its payment standards annually with the Fair Market Rents (FMRs) set by HUD in accordance with HUD rules and regulations and its MTW plan. DCHA’s payment standards are currently set at 187% of 2019 FMRs.”
“Regulatory Citation 24 CFR §982.54(d)(14)”
As that finding clearly shows, the “standards” are set at 87% above Fair Market Rents in effect in 2019.
HUD reported that the “standards” are too high but did not report that DCHA is overpaying all of its voucher contracts to the tune of 87% above the proper rent.
In fact, as shown by the actions HUD ordered DCHA to take, HUD does not know how much “overpayment or underpayment” DCHA has been guilty of. HUD did not say all the voucher contracts are being “overpaid” at 87% more rent than should be paid.
HUD required DCHA on page 46 of the report to take the following “corrective actions” to remedy that finding:
“Corrective Actions:”
“At least annually, DCHA must review its payment standards to determine whether adjustments are needed for some or all unit sizes. DCHA needs to conduct an analysis following its policy and HUD requirements and determine the correct Payment Standards for 2022. DCHA must provide a copy of the updated payment standards, using current FMRs, along with a copy of the rental market analysis to HUD.
“DCHA must also conduct an analysis and determine what the correct Payment Standards should be for 2020 and 2021. If this analysis results in a change to the Payment Standards utilized by DCHA during this timeframe, DCHA’s analysis must also identify any overpayment or underpayment of HAP and its plan to reimburse impacted participants, landlords, and HUD from non-federal resources. DCHA must provide this analysis, correct 2020 and 2021 Payment Standards, identified overpayment and underpayments, and its reimbursement plan to HUD.”
In my opinion, it is obvious from just those short portions of the HUD report that HUD did not, in fact, find what the Post’s editorial board claimed. In fact, HUD doesn’t even know the answer to this overpayment/underpayment issue, which is why it ordered DCHA to do the analysis and report back to HUD.
There are at least two other misleading or flatly wrong sentences in the Post’s short Feb. 24 editorial. I hope other readers can find them.
Green Eyeshades says
A reliable copy of HUD’s September 2022 report to DCHA was posted by the DC Office of Attorney General (OAG):
https://oag.dc.gov/sites/default/files/2022-10/DCReview_Final%209302022%20%281%29.pdf
Turns out, DCHA has been quite busy churning out updates and partial responses to HUD’s numerous findings and demands for corrective action:
https://www.dchousing.org/wordpress/about-us/reports/
DCHA posted a 102-page response (11.5 MB) to HUD’s finding HCV 3 quoted in my first comment today, which DCHA labeled “Finding HCV3 – MTW Initiative 8, Modifications to Methods for Setting Total Tenant Payments…” The acronym “MTW” means Moving to Work.
https://www.dchousing.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/HCV3_Final.pdf
Much of those 102 (pp. 4-80) pages are filled by a report from a rental market consultant called “Novogradac” which analyzed all of DC’s rental “submarkets” and derived “median” rents for each submarket for a range of rental unit sizes organized by number of bedrooms. The rest of that PDF (pp. 81-102) is filled with addenda and exhibits, including all of the paperwork for the consultant’s contract (RFQ, bids, due diligence, etc.)
Here is what Novogradac found for Forest Hills:
“The following table illustrates the median rents by bedroom type for the Forest Hills Neighborhood:”
Median
Studio $2,126
One Bedroom $2,509
Two Bedroom $3,387
Three Bedroom $3,764
Four Bedroom $6,750
Five Bedroom $6,900
Green Eyeshades says
In the first comment (Feb. 21, 10 am) at the top of the comments on this blogpost, the commenter wrote “In Cleveland Park / Van Ness / Forest Hills / Chevy Chase, DCHA sets the maximum allowable rate on a one-bedroom apartment with utilities at $2,648.”
I would appreciate a citation to the source of that $2,648 figure, and a citation which would show what DCHA sets as the “maximum allowable rate” without utilities. DCHA’s consultant excluded utilities in compiling the median rents in DCHA’s response to HUD’s finding “HCV3,” which is linked in my comment above on Feb. 25 at 12:43 pm.
DCHA’s response to HUD’s finding “HCV3” contains DCHA’s updates on median rents found by DCHA’s consultant. That consultant summarized its task as “[c]reate a median rent for each bedroom type (one-bedroom through five-bedroom) by submarket and citywide, excluding utilities.” (PDF p.6 of HCV3 response.)
In Cleveland Park, the consultant created the median rent for a one-bedroom at $2,112.
(PDF p.20 of DCHA response on HCV3.)
In Chevy Chase, the consultant created the median rent for a one-bedroom at $1,791.
(PDF p.34 of DCHA response on HCV3.)
In Forest Hills, the consultant created the median rent for a one-bedroom at $2,509.
(PDF p.24 of DCHA response on HCV3.)
There is no separate sub-market labeled “Van Ness” in that report.
How do we know what DCHA is offering landlords in each of those sub-markets?
In Forest Hills, at any rate, the claim that DCHA has set the “maximum allowable rate … at $2,648” in Forest Hills (including utilities) shows that DCHA’s rate is only $139 per month higher than median rent. Payments of $2,648 for one-bedrooms with utilities when the median rent without utilities in Forest Hills is $2,509 are just not “extreme overpayments” or “severe overpayments.”
Green Eyeshades says
The Washington Post article which triggered the main blogpost does mention the $2,648 figure about halfway down in the article:
“DCHA pays $2,648 including utilities for one-bedrooms at 4801 Connecticut Ave. on behalf of nearly two dozen voucher holders, records obtained by The Post show, though the building has recently advertised one-bedrooms including utilities for $1,700.”
Notice that the Post completely ignored what the median rent is (with or without utilities) for a one bedroom in Forest Hills. But the Post knew that median rent is $2,509, because that is the amount Novagradoc created for the median rent for a one-bedroom in Forest Hills. Why did the Post ignore the correct median rent, and instead mention an advertisement for other one-bedrooms in that same building? Median rents are not based on one landlord’s advertisements.
The Post’s citation of the number $2,648 is based only on “records” the Post obtained (I presume under FOIA). The Post did not cite DCHA or HUD regulations or policy as the basis for paying $2,648. I don’t know how DCHA determined it would pay$2,648 (including utilities) for that one-bedroom apartment at one building in our neighborhood. And the Post didn’t tell us what DCHA pays for one-bedrooms in other buildings in our neighborhood.
Harry Gural says
The maximum rents that DCHA approves by neighborhood are at this link: https://www.dchousing.org/vue/customer/rent.aspx. For Forest Hills, Cleveland Park and Van Ness, the amount is $2,648 for a one-bedroom with utilities. This is very high.
The Post obtained via FOIA data that shows that DCHA frequently pays $2,648 for apartments in these neighborhoods, and the maximum rate in other areas as well.
The Novogradac estimates of median rents are bogus. DCHA has said that Novogradac excludes rent-stabilized buildings when estimating median rents. Rent-stabilized buildings are older and less expensive than newer, non-rent stabilized ones. Therefore, omitting these buildings inflates Novogradac’s estimates of the median rents.
The Novogradac estimates are far above typical rents in these neighborhoods. Therefore, it’s likely that the overpayments are higher than the Post estimates.