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Tenants and advocates press council to strengthen Housing with Integrity Act; agencies urge targeted approach
Summary
Tenants described mold, lack of hot water and unsafe conditions at buildings across DC and urged the council to deny business licenses to repeat offenders. Agencies supported the bill's goals but recommended narrowing the trigger to Class I life‑safety violations, adding funding for proactive inspections, and preserving agency discretion to avoid unintended displacement.
Dozens of tenants, organizers and legal advocates told the Committee on Public Works and Operations that the Housing with Integrity Amendment Act of 2025 is an urgent step to hold negligent landlords accountable. "We have apartment complexes such as Mulberry Plaza…we have numerous apartment complexes where residents continue to face slumlord conditions that are just unfit for human beings to live," an Empower DC organizer said during in‑person testimony.
Tenant leaders described repeated failures by property owners to fix serious hazards. Denise Hunter told the committee that water leaks, tilting floors and long unresolved repairs had forced residents out of units: "I'm more concerned about the people in the old complex that I live at because the landlord wasn't doing the things that they supposed to been doing." Legal and child advocacy groups urged the council to expand the bill to cover license renewals, mandate ownership transparency to prevent shell‑company evasion and lower the 30% threshold that triggers licensing penalties.
Agencies asked the council to refine the proposal for operational feasibility. Keith Parsons of the Department of Buildings told the committee that the proposed expansion of twice‑annual inspections for a new "super tier" would require dozens of additional inspectors and millions in funding: "Quadrupling tier one's inspection frequency without additional resources could result in longer turnaround times and diminished attention to the most critical cases." Parsons recommended focusing the bill on Class I life‑safety violations or a smaller subset of the worst properties to concentrate resources.
Why it matters: Tenants said current enforcement is too slow — some housing court cases have taken more than a year — and that tying business licensing to unaddressed, serious violations could deter repeated neglect and protect vulnerable households.
What’s next: DLCP and DOB proposed technical edits (discretionary denial language, clearer targeting of license categories) and asked the council to coordinate funding for expanded proactive inspections before expanding inspection frequency in statute.
