In May, the DC Department of Human Services (DHS) announced that homelessness in the District had grown 14% since 2023, including a 39% rise in the number of unhoused families and 6% increase among unaccompanied individuals, according to results of its 2024 Point-In-Time (PIT) Count. The PIT Count is the annual census of individuals experiencing homelessness. Despite this increase, the total count of unhoused individuals is 12% lower than that of early 2020, right before the COVID-19 public health emergency. 

This is the second consecutive year that DC confirmed an increase in homelessness and blamed the more than 20% increase in rental home costs from 2019 to 2022 as a primary cause. Research by the National Low Income Housing Coalition found that DC renters would need to earn more than $81,000 annually to afford a two-bedroom apartment at fair market rent without paying more than the recommended maximum of 30% of their income on housing. 

City leaders such as DHS Director Laura Zeilinger believe the city’s strategies “are still highly effective” but acknowledged that interventions are needed earlier to prevent a rise in people experiencing homelessness for the first time.

The fastest growing cohort experiencing homelessness in the United States are people aged 50 and older, who comprise nearly half of the homeless population and are on an estimated trajectory to triple in number by 2030, according to Next Avenue newsletter. In addition, people who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) are overrepresented in the homeless community, as are families involved with the child welfare system and individuals affected by incarceration. 

Even our brave veterans who sacrificially served DC and our nation are increasingly without permanent homes. The 2018 PIT count found that the number of homeless veterans in the District had grown 7% from 285 in 2017 to 306 in 2018, a jump due to “the challenge of preventing new veterans from becoming home,” according to Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness. Veterans have been a key focus of anti-homelessness initiatives in the District for more than a decade and remain so in the Homeward DC 2.0, the city’s Fiscal Years 2021-2025 strategic plan to end homelessness. 

Executed by the Interagency Council on Homelessness, Homeward DC 2.0 is an anti-homelessness action plan that especially targets “racial inequities in the homeless services system and [the creation of] systemic fair treatment for all people.”

Its four components encompass the following:

1. A summary of the Homeless DC Plan and lessons from the last five years;
2. Provision of the vision, guiding principles, and building blocks of Homeward DC 2.0;
3. An outline of system modeling and housing inventory needs; and
4. More than 100 strategies supported by 12 strategic goals.

NASW Metro DC recognizes that progress has been slow but significant. Indeed, statistics show that between 2020 and 2022—pandemic years--DC homelessness dropped 30.9%, the largest in the United States, “thanks to massive federal investments in housing retention initiatives and implementation of an eviction moratorium.”  

Investing in Solutions: Homeless-Related Highlights of the 2025 Budget

Among the city’s 2024-2025 funded or re-funded programs to reduce homelessness are

• the Career Mobility Action Plan (Career MAP) program to keep 500 families “stably housed and help them advance toward career goals.” The program distributes rental assistance, personalized coaching to help participants advance professional and family goals, and money to partially offset the loss of other assistance as recipients’ earnings rise.  
• operation of non-congregate bridge housing to “create a stable environment to help expedite exits to permanency. Non-congregate shelter can be beneficial for clients who avoid low-barrier shelter because it provides more privacy, and it also supports better flow through the Continuum of Care.”  
• continued support of the Peer Case Management Institute (PCMI), a partnership with Howard University that trains residents with lived experience of homelessness to become case managers within the DHS Continuum of Care.  
• renovations and rebuilding of the District’s shelters, including the Federal City Shelter to expand capacity and ensure unhoused residents have a “safe, clean, and dignified place to stay” until they return to permanent housing. 

Special thanks goes to NASW Metro DC-endorsed At-Large City Council member Robert White, Jr., who introduced and led passage of a budget amendment to add 65 housing vouchers by shrinking funds for street outreach services and eliminating $1 million of a proposed $4.3 million truancy program. According to The Washington Post, White made the difficult funding decision after noting, “Hundreds of families in the rapid rehousing program are still facing termination of their housing assistance, unable to pay their rents and without anywhere to go. I think the best way to preserve housing and prevent homelessness is to not throw families currently in housing into the street.”

While the 2025 DC budget is now final, the NASW Metro DC Chapter adds the voices of its social workers to the outcries of the 100 partner organizations and 4,000 people involved in The Way Home Campaign to End Chronic Homelessness In DC:

• City Council funded only 148 Permanent Supportive Housig (PSH) vouchers for unhoused individuals and 451 vouchers for families. This is seriously inadequate, especially for DC’s most vulnerable populations such as children and older adults. PSH provides long-term housing vouchers and intensive case management for the chronically homeless and those at high risk of becoming homeless. 
• While NASW Metro DC is relieved that council members restored Mayor Bowser’s proposed cuts to homelessness prevention and advanced evidence-based solutions to address the pending termination of families from the Rapid Rehousing program, the final 2025 budget underfunds the city’s stated goal of eliminating chronic homelessness. In particular, the council underinvests in expansion of affordable housing, which is the core cause of Metro DC homelessness. 
• Rising numbers of encampment evictions put the health and well-being of the city’s most vulnerable residents at higher risk. 
• Sadly, the budget no longer includes street outreach and cuts in half the monies needed for Rapid Rehousing for individuals.

On a broader level, the chapter agrees with affordable housing advocates that the city could incentivize more landlords to accept housing vouchers, invest more in upgrading old buildings for use as shelters, grow community partnerships with more providers and organizations able to expand access to services, and promote routine screenings for homelessness or its risk at health clinics and food stamp offices—all suggestions made by Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homeless, and Sandy Markwood, CEO of USAging.

Addressing homelessness seriously through policy and careful investments is what residents want. Nearly three-fourths of the public believes that “improving access to decent, affordable, and stable housing is good for the safety and economic well-being of our neighborhoods and communities,” notes an April 2013 report from the MacArthur Foundation. 

Federal decisions and investments also are influencing or could influence DC homelessness efforts. For example, the chapter was dismayed at the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling in City of Grants Pass, Oregon v. Johnson in April 2024 that criminalized homelessness, stating that “camping” bans for homeless people do not violate the Eighth Amendment regarding cruel and unusual punishment. In response and as part of compliance with our mandated NASW Code of Ethics regarding protection of our clients, the Metro DC Chapter will strongly oppose any proposed city ordinances that use a “handcuffs-over-housing” approach to target unhoused individuals. These include establishing fines for public sleeping when no other options are available, and bans on the use of pillows, blankets, or cardboard boxes for weather protection while publicly sleeping within city boundaries. 

On the positive side, DC benefited when the Biden-Harris administration made the largest single-year investment in ending homelessness in U.S. history by guiding passage of the American Rescue Plan Act, which stopped millions of planned evictions and reversed an increase in homelessness during the heart of the global COVID-19 pandemic from 2020 to 2022. This funding influx achieved everything from record numbers of new apartment construction to subsidized housing-related support for older adults and other high-risk populations, according to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homeless.   

“Chronic and short-term homelessness are complex problems that won’t be solved by any single agency or annual budget,” says NASW Metro DC Executive Director Debra Riggs. “Policy makers must listen closely to advocates such as social workers who witness firsthand the outcomes of programs, investments, and outdated practices. Together, we can find the best solutions for the unique needs of unhoused individuals and families in DC.”