Testimony
of
Jean Stewart
Sierra Club, District of Columbia Chapter
Committee on Housing Oversight Hearing
DC Department of Housing and Community Development
June 9, 2025
Introduction
Thank you, Councilmember White, for the opportunity to testify at this budget hearing on the DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) and the Housing Production Trust Fund. My name is Jean Stewart, and I am a member of the Energy Committee of the Sierra Club DC Chapter. The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In DC, we represent about 7,000 residents across all eight wards.
This committee should support the Mayor’s proposed allocation of $40,743,000 to the Housing Production Trust Fund.
It is not news to this committee that the District faces an affordable housing crisis. The Sierra Club has been urging this committee for years to ensure that the Housing Production Trust Fund is fully funded to ensure the continued construction of new affordable housing. Affordable housing within the District is a social equity issue and an environmental issue. When people can afford to live close to their jobs, schools, shopping, and community, they drive less, use less energy in their homes, and can share resources of all kinds with neighbors. So we were pleased to see that the Mayor’s proposed budget includes $40.7 million to the Fund, an increase over the FY 25 allocation of $21 million dollars. While this is still less than what is needed, we encourage this committee to retain this commitment in the approved budget.
We also encourage this committee to ensure that additional funding is in place through the Local Rent Supplement Program to allow for the continued production of deeply affordable housing, i.e. housing that is affordable to families earning 30% or less of the Area Median Income. Finally, although not strictly a budget issue, this committee should ensure that the Fund provides annual reports to the Council as required by statute. The Fund has not issued a public report since 2023.
Existing housing stocks in the District of Columbia are largely old
Much of D.C.'s housing stock is occupied by residents who cannot afford the upgrades necessary to make their homes more environmentally sound. We urge DHCD to use some of its operating budget to provide upgrades such as weatherization and structural and equipment repairs. These improvements would be a good investment for DC, enabling residents to remain in DC, and making for healthier living spaces thus lowering overall health costs. They will also lower residents' utility bills.
This committee should also work to ensure that new construction of affordable housing is all-electric
The Sierra Club has also repeatedly urged this committee to address the District’s affordable housing crisis while ensuring that new construction of District-financed affordable housing is all-electric. When the DC Council passed the Climate Commitment Act, it committed the District to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the District and achieve carbon neutrality by 2045. A major reason the District is not on track to meet these commitments is our continued burning of fossil fuels, including fracked gas in residential buildings. Thanks to the tremendous decline in the cost of utility-scale solar and wind power capacity, renewable power can be procured at affordable rates. For the following reasons, the District needs to transition off burning gas in residential buildings, and DHCD has a central role to play in ensuring that new housing is all electric.
Burning gas for heat pollutes both our climate and our homes. It brings documented health impacts including a 42% increased risk of children having asthma symptoms, aggravated respiratory symptoms, greater susceptibility to lung infections, and IQ and learning deficits in children.
Burning gas for heat is more expensive than efficient electric heat. By ensuring that new affordable housing runs solely on clean electricity, DHCD can keep utility costs down for the low- to moderate-income residents. As the District transitions off gas to heat buildings, a dwindling number of District residents will have to pay the rising costs of gas delivery infrastructure; this is untenable. Gas heat will become increasingly expensive, and DHCD should act now to ensure that District residents who live in affordable housing are protected from skyrocketing costs of gas heat in the near future.
Councilmember White, the Sierra Club applauds your leadership in introducing and passing the Greener Government Buildings Act (GGBA). As you know, that law requires DC government buildings, or buildings substantially financed by the DC government, to achieve net zero energy standards, meaning that they are very highly efficient and do not combust fossil fuels on the premises. We strongly oppose the Mayor’s proposal that essentially repeals the Greener Government Buildings Act in the budget.
While we recognize the challenges for affordable housing developers to retrofit existing buildings to achieve net zero energy standards, we encourage DC authorities to work with housing developers to eliminate fossil fuels in affordable housing. We continue to call for new affordable housing financed by the Housing Production Trust Fund to meet the standards in the GGBA. Housing Production Trust Fund dollars are public dollars which should be used for public benefit–-benefit for those residing in affordable housing as well as the broader community. Burning fossil fuels in our homes benefits no one. It brings only harm, increased costs in health care, and increased displacement of low- and moderate-income residents. The District cannot attract new residents if it cannot provide healthy affordable housing.
Further, though you no longer chair the committee with jurisdiction over the Greener Government Buildings, we ask that you work with the current chair of that committee, Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, to reverse the mayor’s attempt to lock DC government into decades of fossil fuel costs by repealing GGBA. The Sierra Club stands ready to work with you and Councilmember Lewis George to protect your pioneering climate law.
Conclusion
Thank you, Councilmember White, for the opportunity to provide testimony today. Amid DC’s affordable housing crisis, the increasing severity of the climate crisis we face, and the other pressing environmental issues in the District, we believe DHCD needs to allocate some of its FY 26 budget to ensure environmentally sound upgrades to existing low- and moderate-income housing. We also ask that homes financed through the HPTF be all-electric and burn no fossil fuels. In addition, new housing should be built in a way that protects vulnerable District residents from footing the bill for our increasingly obsolete gas infrastructure.