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Advocates say rent registry rollout fell short; council presses DHCD for timeline and data access
Summary
Legal Aid, Committee of 100 and others told the committee that the rent registry public portal launched incomplete and lacks research‑grade exports; the committee pressed DHCD for staffing and clearer timeline to finish full public and researcher access.
Advocates and researchers told the Committee on Housing the long‑promised rent registry is not yet the searchable, public accountability tool the statute envisioned. Simon Wentzel of Legal Aid DC said the portal went online only recently but «currently only about two dozen multifamily properties are actually visible» despite thousands of registrations, limiting tenants' ability to use the database to hold landlords accountable.
Andrea Rosen of the Committee of 100 on the Federal City urged the council to require the rent registry to publish downloadable datasets and preset reports so analysts can evaluate how rent stabilization and voucher use intersect with rent‑stabilized units. DHCD acknowledged the public portal launch encountered structural and coding issues during testing, said a staged release plan is underway and projected fuller public reporting functionality within weeks to months; the agency also reported and secured a possible data exposure during testing and posted a public notice on its site.
Quote: "After a decade, we would finally have this tool... Currently, only about 2 dozen multifamily properties are actually visible on that portal," Legal Aid's Simon Wentzel said.
The committee asked DHCD to publish a precise timeline for tenant and researcher portal features, to report whether additional staff are required for ongoing maintenance, and to notify affected users of any data incidents.
