Lawmakers Pitch Overhaul Of D.C.'s Housing Finance System With New $150M Fund

D.C.'s Housing Production Trust Fund has deployed over $1.4B to fill gaps in affordable housing project budgets over the past decade, but in recent years, the pace of new construction has slowed dramatically. 

Four council members are now seeking to replace the HPTF as part of a wide-ranging bill aimed at accelerating housing production. 

Councilmembers Robert White — chair of the Committee on Housing — and Brianne Nadeau on Wednesday morning proposed the Housing Production Omnibus Act of 2026. Two other members of the 13-person body, Councilmembers Charles Allen and Janeese Lewis George, who is running for mayor, also signed on as cosponsors. 

The bill would replace the HPTF with a new Housing Opportunity Fund, and it calls for allocating at least $150M annually into the fund. 

Under Mayor Muriel Bowser's administration, the HPTF has received $100M in most years, with some boosts from federal funding during the pandemic. In 2024, HPTF money was diverted away from producing housing to instead stabilize existing affordable properties that had received city funds but were struggling financially due to high levels of unpaid rent. 

D.C. also has an Affordable Housing Preservation Fund that has received $29M in local funding since fiscal year 2017. The proposed fund would also replace that vehicle. 

"We're facing a severe shortage of affordable housing," Nadeau told Bisnow in an interview Wednesday morning. "And it's really important to do this now because we've had enough time to understand how the Housing Production Trust Fund has worked for people and the District to know what we need to do next."

"This bill modernizes our entire housing finance system," she added. 

The new Housing Opportunity Fund would be split into five parts: 

• a Housing Production Account for new and adaptive reuse projects;
• an Affordable Housing Subsidy Account to provide homes for low-income residents;
• a Preservation Account to maintain existing affordable housing;
• a Tenant Purchase Support Account to assist tenants in buying their properties through the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act;
• and a District Acquisition Account for the city to buy land for housing development.

The bill includes language specifying that no less than 60% of the total appropriations would go toward the first two items. 

The Housing Production Account would make funding available to any housing developer — including those building market-rate apartments, differentiating it from the affordable housing-focused HPTF.

While developers using this account wouldn't have income-restriction covenants, they would be required to set rents at an affordable level for renters using housing vouchers, and those projects could receive public funding to become income-restricted at a later date. 

Nadeau said this account is intended to draw more investors and developers to build housing in the District. Many national investors have said they are shying away from the city due to economic headwinds and local policies. Construction of D.C. rental housing fell 79% between 2023 and 2024, Bisnow previously reported.

"We want to be jump-starting housing development," Nadeau said. "The way you do that is, say we have money for your housing project, and we have money that isn't necessarily tied to affordability ... this fund is to say, 'We want you to build in the District of Columbia.'"

"So you have a new builder that comes to town, they're like, 'Wow, D.C. has these funds. I should come. It's not only about affordable housing, but, oh, if I build affordable, I can actually get more funds,'" she added. "So people are going to be layering these funds."

The District Acquisition Account would give the city greater authority to acquire land and lease it back to developers or tenant groups. 

The District for years has sold city-owned lots to developers with stipulations that a certain amount of housing be affordable, and it has partnered with developers to build on large-scale city-owned campuses. But the bill could make the District government a more active buyer of land. 

Planned developments across the city have stalled over the last two years as macroeconomic headwinds and difficulty attracting investment to D.C. have made lenders less willing to finance new construction. This has left swaths of vacant land that have increasingly come up for sale in recent months.

The bill could lead to the city acquiring more of those sites, giving it the ability to spark new housing starts and a say in how many of the units are affordable.

The TOPA program has been in place for decades but was reformed with last year's Rental Act to exempt properties built within the last 15 years. This new bill would for the first time provide city subsidies to help tenants buy their buildings. 

Additionally, the bill would make several other policy changes aimed at boosting housing construction.

It would allow District retirement funds to invest in local housing projects, from which they are currently disallowed. It would also create a Revolving Construction Loan fund to provide "fast, flexible financing" for projects on public land and require 40-year affordable housing agreements for income-restricted projects supported by the fund.

The bill's authors also gave a nod to a common criticism that D.C.'s past housing development policies have pushed out longstanding residents. The bill mandates anti-displacement plans for projects that would require existing tenants to move, and it would create a public database of all fund applications and awards. 

While it has four cosponsors, the bill needs seven votes for a council majority. 

Nadeau said she has discussed the bill with other members who want more time to study it. But having the housing committee chair as a cosponsor gives her confidence in its chances — she said White is scheduling a hearing for the bill. 

"There's a lot of enthusiasm for it," she said. "It's a little complicated. I think if it was a much more simple bill that was like, 'Yay we're going to build more housing,' maybe you'd have 11 co-introducers. But the way it works here is people like to read things before they put their names on them, and this one's kind of complicated."

Bowser's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the bill. 

D.C.'s Apartment and Office Building Association says it has just begun reading the legislation and doesn't have a position on it yet. 

"We look forward to reviewing the legislation and working with the Mayor and the Council as this bill moves through the legislative process," AOBA CEO Lisa Mallory said in a statement.