Washington, D.C. has some of the strongest #rentcontrol guidelines in America. But what it doesn’t need are all the loopholes regarding rent control law. The law needs to be reformed and have the loopholes removed… it should not be maintained as is. 

Advocates have initiated several campaigns in the past few years urging the District leaders to adopt more aggressive rent-control measures to protect the tenants from ever surging rents. They simply can't afford to live there otherwise.

Around 45% of all multifamily rental units in D.C. are allowed to increase their rental rates, but they are limited to the rate of inflation plus 2%.The city needs to do more to keep renters from being priced out of the market.

City council members and tenant unions have been pressing the government for a fresh rent law for many years, but nothing has come to fruition so far. There’s a whole host of reasons for why reforming the law will provide relief. 

With the old law, the landlords could make a plea to the government to allow them to increase rent, which would on many occasions be raised a much higher amount than normally permitted. Reforming the existing law will allow them to put extra safeguards in to protect tenants. One idea is to only allow rent hikes after a building passes an inspection to ensure that it is in good repair and complies with all housing codes.

Landlords are entitled to 12% guaranteed profits and can increase them as high they need to. It should be updated to reduce the guaranteed profit and protect the elderly and specially-abled tenants from higher than normal increases in rent. Controlling or maintaining the same rent laws does nothing to protect vulnerable populations. 

And then there are the "voluntary" agreements that make the apartments unaffordable. Usually, these agreements include charges for property maintenance among other things, which in essence are simply devices used to pull money from the tenants' pockets.

Our city has some of the highest rates of gentrification and displacement in the nation, meaning that it is common practice to raise prices until the current residents cannot afford to live there, so they move out and higher-paying tenants take their place. Keeping the law as it currently stands will not wipe out the issues the tenants are faced with. David Bonilla with one of the buildings' tenant associations summed it up best: “we can’t afford to lose our culture and have new gentrification coming here to take D.C. away from us.” 

The district has seen an ever widening cultural rift over the years, resulting in two distinct classes. The landlords enjoy perpetually increasing rent and property value, while the culture and character of the renters is forced to suffer. This has largely forced low-income tenants to move to low-cost neighborhoods with fewer resources.

The D.C. Council must block any options for the landlords to play around with the rental rates, milking their lower and middle-income tenants. The reform should be such that gentrification is controlled and tenants don’t lose their houses to the more affluent. “The status quo just isn’t enough,” says Victoria Gonçalves, a tenant organizer with the Latino Economic Development Center. “We need to update the legislation to be more responsive to the real crisis that we’re in right now.”

We don’t need a law that rewards the landlords for such abusive practices as forcing the tenants to move out of their homes so that wealthier people can move in. A reformed rent law needs to be put into action soon before D.C. bids a permanent farewell to thousands of renters.