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Are Tenant Protections Making DC Rent Higher? | City Cast DC

May 23, 2025
  • D.C. Policy Center

On May 22, 2025, Director of Research and Policy Emilia Calma was featured on the City Cast DC podcast.

For decades, DC’s laws have been built to give tenants some muscle against landlords who might try to sell their buildings. But now that’s changing — with proposals before the DC Council that would shrink TOPA, the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act. In the old days, the politics of this would have been pretty clear, but nowadays there’s a twist, since some progressives have come to worry more about the supply of housing than the fate of individual tenants. Emilia Calma from the DC Policy Center has studied the issue and she’s here to explain. 

Read More: Are Tenant Protections Making DC Rent Higher?
Additional reading: TOPA’s Promise and Pitfalls: Balancing tenant rights, affordability, and housing investment in Washington, D.C.

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D.C. Policy Center


Established in 2016, the D.C. Policy Center is a non-partisan research and policy organization committed to advancing policies for a strong and vibrant economy in the District of Columbia. Through rigorous research and collaboration, the D.C. Policy Center develops and tests policy ideas, disseminates its findings, and engages in constructive dialogue and debate.

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