(Washington, DC) Today, Mayor Muriel Bowser and US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Marcia Fudge went to Spring Flats to announce HUD's Our Way Home initiative, a national effort to connect communities across the nation to tools and resources to produce and preserve more affordable housing. Mayor Bowser also highlighted the $1.4 billion her Administration has invested in the District's Housing Production Trust Fund and the affordable housing toolkit the District is using to reach 36,000 new homes by 2025, including at least 12,000 affordable homes.
"In DC, we set and we’re working toward bold housing goals because we understand that a safe and stable life begins with safe and stable housing," said Mayor Bowser. "Spring Flats, which includes affordable housing for seniors and families as well as affordable homeownership opportunities, is an example of what is possible when you use all the tools in your toolkit to create new housing. But we also know that we need our entire region just as focused as we are on adding more affordable housing. We are grateful that Secretary Fudge is leading the Biden-Harris Administration's efforts to add more housing and produce and preserve more affordable housing, and we look forward to our continued partnership on this work."
The District's bold investments in housing have made Washington, DC a regional and national leader in the efforts to build more affordable housing. Other policy initiatives announced in recent months, such as the $10 million Black Homeownership Fund, underscore the innovative tools that the Bowser Administration is using to make DC a more equitable and inclusive city.
"Mayor Bowser has made it a priority of her administration to make sure affordable housing and homeownership are more accessible and sustainable for Washingtonians," said Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio. "We've been able to keep housing prices down in the District by increasing the inventory of options, closing financial gaps with rental and down payment assistance, and introducing initiatives that help support our residents as they seek to make the city their home long term."
At the start of her second term, Mayor Bowser set a bold goal to deliver an additional 36,000 units of housing – including at least 12,000 units of affordable housing – by 2025. The Mayor also made DC the first jurisdiction in the nation to create affordable housing goals by neighborhood, distributing the housing goals across the District's ten planning areas. From January 2019 through March 2022, the District has produced 21,915 net new units, of which 4,165 are affordable. You can track the District's progress toward #36000by2025 at open.dc.gov/36000by2025.
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