Clearer rules, fewer delays: Strengthening the Housing Investment Protection Act before markup

My name is Emilia Calma and I am the Director of the Wilkes Initiative for Housing Policy at the D.C. Policy Center, an independent nonpartisan think tank advancing policies for a strong, vibrant and compelling District of Columbia.

Much of my testimony today draws on our March 2025 report on the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA)¹ and our May 2026 report, Breaking the Scarcity-subsidy cycle.²

B26-0758 contains several constructive provisions that address real problems in the District’s housing system. We recommend retaining those provisions. However, four provisions would benefit from refinement before markup.

Provisions we recommend retaining

• Clarifying protective-order obligations for tenants receiving housing vouchers.  The bill appropriately clarifies that a tenant receiving a housing subsidy is responsible for depositing the tenant portion of the rent, and not the full contract rent, into protective orders. This is a sensible clarification. A voucher holder ordered to escrow the full contract rent rather than their own portion is being asked to pay money they do not have and never owed. The Committee may also wish to clarify how this provision applies when a subsidy has terminated and the tenant has subsequently resumed responsibility for the full rent payment.
• Giving the District of Columbia Housing Authority (DCHA) greater flexibility when subsidized properties undergo rehabilitation. The bill would allow DCHA to temporarily transfer a tenant’s long-term subsidy contract to another eligible property during repairs and rehabilitation. It would also require affected residents be given priority to return once rehabilitation is complete. It also permits assistance to be transferred under specified circumstances when a property becomes uninhabitable or repeatedly fails inspections. These provisions can help preserve housing stability for residents while allowing necessary rehabilitation to proceed.
• Clarifying the treatment of illegal activity in eviction proceedings while preserving protections for non-offending tenants. The bill revises the circumstances under which a housing provider may recover possession when a tenant or another occupant has committed an illegal act. Importantly, where an illegal act is committed by another occupant, the bill provides that the tenant may be evicted only if the tenant knew or should have known that an illegal activity was taking place. For dangerous crimes and crimes of violence, the bill also requires housing providers to consider reasonable alternatives for preserving the housing of non-offending occupants and adds an express protection for conduct undertaken in self-defense or defense of another.
  
  We recommend retaining new timelines for evictions related to illegal activity with these two safeguards. They appropriately distinguish between offending and non-offending household members and reduce the risk that households will lose their housing because of conduct they neither committed nor reasonably could have prevented.
• Clarifying housing-provider access to units for repairs and inspections. The bill appropriately clarifies a housing provider’s right to enter a unit for a reasonable purpose, at a reasonable time, with reasonable notice, and establishes remedies when access is unlawfully denied. It also requires that tenants who change their locks must provide a key or other forms of access to the housing provider within 48 hours of that change.
  
  Reliable access is important to maintain property and to correct housing code violations. Some violations cannot reasonably be identified or remedied without access to the unit, and delays in access can allow relatively minor maintenance problems to become more serious.³ We therefore support the bill’s effort to establish clearer expectations and remedies for both housing providers and tenants.
• Clarifying who may exercise TOPA rights. We also support the bill’s proposed definition of tenant for the purposes of the Rental Housing Conversion and Sale Act.
  In stakeholder interviews, we heard many examples of individuals who did not reside in a unit or have rental obligations attempting to assert TOPA rights. These disputes can add delay and uncertainty to already complicated transactions. Limiting standing to individuals with a genuine tenancy interest would make the process clearer while preserving TOPA rights for lawful tenants. We also recommend keeping the provision limiting standing after the deadline for contesting a notice of transfer has passed.

Provisions that warrant further revision

• A statutory deadline for initial eviction hearings may not, by itself, meaningfully shorten case timelines. Creating predictable timelines is a worthwhile objective. However, a statutory deadline may not address the operational factors that determine how quickly cases move through the court system. The Committee should consider whether complementary changes to court procedures and case management would be more effective in reducing delays.
  In 2025, roughly 12,780 eviction cases were filed in D.C., and the median amount of back rent at issue was $4,851.⁴ For many relatively small non-payment cases, early resolution can benefit both tenants and housing providers by preventing arrears, legal costs, and uncertainty.
  Stakeholders have told us that in-person hearings historically created more opportunities for parties and counsel to communicate and resolve cases before trial. The Committee should examine whether greater use of in-person hearings, while preserving remote participation where needed as an accommodation or because of genuine barriers to attendance, could improve settlement rates and case resolution.
• The proposed TOPA exemption for incoming investors should be expanded to address investor exits and replacement. We support the bill’s recognition that the admission of a new equity investor should not constitute a sale for the purposes of TOPA. The introduced language exempts certain transfers whose sole purpose is to admit limited partners, investor members, or other equity investors while maintaining specified ownership or control conditions.
  However, the proposed language only addresses the admission of investors and does not address the recapitalization issue identified in our research. Our stakeholder interviews found that institutional equity partners typically invest for a defined period and exit roughly within five to fifteen years to rebalance their portfolios. Their departure can force the managing partner to recapitalize the property even though day-to-day management and controlling ownership remain unchanged.⁵ Under current law, these transactions trigger TOPA proceedings.
  Low-Income Housing Tax Credits involve a similar process in which an investor member exits, and a new investor is admitted (capturing LIHTC tax credits can require a full change of investors). We therefore recommend broadening the exemption to encompass the admission, withdrawal, removal, or replacement of a limited partner, investor member, or other equity investor. This change would better accommodate routine recapitalizations, including transactions needed to retain covenanted LIHTC properties, and sustain investor interest in the District.
• Do not complicate the 15-year exemption with the addition of DOPA. The bill defines a “new building” generally as one completed within the preceding 15 years, while also including certain substantial additions and conversions to residential use. It exempts the sale or transfer of such buildings from TOPA but expressly provides that the exemption does not apply to the District’s Opportunity to Purchase Act (DOPA).
  We recommend striking this provision. The original rationale for exempting newer buildings from TOPA was to reduce uncertainty surrounding investments in newly constructed housing. Subjecting those same transactions to a separate District purchase process would partially reintroduce the transaction risk and uncertainty that the exemption is intended to remove.
  The practical reach of such a provision remains relatively limited. Between 2012 and 2023, just 4.5 percent of TOPA-applicable transactions we identified involved buildings built since 2007.⁶ The overwhelming majority involved older properties, particularly buildings constructed before 1978.

Thank you for the opportunity to testify. I am happy to answer any questions the Committee may have, and the D.C. Policy Center is glad to provide the underlying transaction data to Committee staff.

1. Calma, E. and Sayin, Y., “TOPA’s Promise and Pitfalls: Balancing tenant rights, affordability, and housing investment in Washington, D.C.,” March 2025. https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/topas-promise-and-pitfalls-in-dc/
2. Calma, E. and Sayin, Y. “Breaking the scarcity-subsidy cycle: A new housing vision for the District of Columbia,” May 2025. https://www.dcpolicycenter.org/publications/breaking-the-scarcity-subsidy-cycle-a-new-housing-vision-for-the-district-of-columbia/
3. A number of housing code violations cannot be corrected, and in several cases cannot even be identified, without access to the unit. Class 1 violations of this kind include 12-G DCMR § 310.2 (failure to maintain a required carbon monoxide detection system), where detectors are frequently removed by residents even after being replaced, and section 704.5.4.4 of the International Property Maintenance Code (IPMC), as incorporated in the District’s Property Maintenance Code (tampering with a smoke alarm), where alarms are removed repeatedly. Class 2 violations of this kind include 12-G DCMR § 102.5 (failure to make repairs or installations in a workmanlike manner), a standard that is subjective and dependent on tenant cooperation; 12-G DCMR § 104.3.3 (tenant refusal to permit inspection); IPMC § 301.2 (failure to maintain the premises in a safe and sanitary condition) and 12-G DCMR § 305.3 (failure to maintain interior surfaces in good repair), both of which frequently turn on tenant housekeeping rather than on any condition within the housing provider’s control; and IPMC § 404.4.4 (kitchen or other nonhabitable space used for sleeping purposes) and IPMC § 404.5 (overcrowding of a dwelling unit), neither of which is enforceable in the District. These examples are drawn from the testimony of Jamie Weinbaum before the Committee on Public Works and Operations and the Committee of the Whole on B26-0287, the Housing with Integrity Amendment Act of 2025, November 5, 2025.
4. New America, “An Update on DC Evictions.” https://www.newamerica.org/insights/an-update-on-dc-evictions-june-2025-through-february-2026/ The filings figure is for calendar year 2025; the median back rent figure covers June 2025 through February 2026.
5. TOPA’s Promise and Pitfalls.
6. TOPA’s Promise and Pitfalls, note 1. Of the 419 transactions, 394 were in buildings built before 1978, 6 between 1978 and 2006, and 19 since 2007.