The D.C. Council advanced an act to prevent tenants’ pending Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) applications from stalling their evictions in an effort to quell mounting unpaid rent in the District. The proposed legislation passed on first reading April 1 and is the council’s attempt at ensuring the program is used to support rent during one-time emergencies, and not to combat the high cost of housing or continually pay rent tenants can’t afford.
The Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Amendment Act of 2025, introduced by Council Chairman Phil Mendelson on Jan. 13, would implement structural changes to grant judges the discretion to evict tenants with pending ERAP applications and penalize landlords who fail to cooperate with the ERAP process. The proposed legislation comes after the D.C. Council passed a temporary amendment in September to make the requirements for ERAP — a government program that offers one-time financial assistance to tenants who are unable to pay rent — stricter and prevent tenants from automatically avoiding eviction by applying for ERAP.
The legislation allows, rather than requires, courts to grant stays in eviction cases for tenants who have applied for ERAP, which councilmembers say will prevent situations when tenants file applications just to delay eviction, even if ERAP would not cover all their past-due rent. The legislation also grants families who didn’t have the opportunity to apply for ERAP before their eviction cases the ability to reschedule their eviction one time to apply.
“We all want to avoid evictions, but without a working eviction process that encourages landlords and tenants to work together where they can, the system cannot function, and there are many victims,” Ward 3 Councilmember Matthew Frumin said at a March 25 committee markup of the bill.
Some residents see ERAP as an “end-all be-all measure” to help all housing needs in the District, Ward 5 Councilmember Zachary Parker said at the committee markup, when in reality, the program can only help in emergency situations. He said the District still has a lot of work to do to help residents secure housing, but this act will prevent affordable housing options from shrinking due to unpaid rent.
“I think unfairly the council has been characterized by some as wanting to make evictions easier, and instead I’d reframe that and say we’re trying to right-size the relationship between tenants and landlords in an effort to save our affordable housing stock,” Parker said.
The legislation would require applicants to document their eligibility and revise the definition of “emergency situation” to clarify ERAP should be used only in “unforeseen” circumstances, like sudden job loss or an unexpected medical cost, rather than as a response to the high costs of housing. Frumin said the revision “realigns the policy incentives” of ERAP to ensure evictions aren’t infinitely delayed. “ERAP was always intended to prevent eviction for families experiencing time-limited emergencies, not to delay evictions for families for whom rent is chronically unaffordable,” Frumin said.
The proposed legislation mirrors the Emergency Rental Assistance Reform Temporary Amendment Act of 2024, which expires on July 30, and first established judges could evict tenants with pending ERAP applications. The temporary legislation was a response to landlord concerns that delaying evictions was leading to mounting unpaid rent, threatening the ability of affordable housing providers to continue to operate.
Tenant advocates counter that the number of pending applications reflects the genuine struggle people face to pay their rent. After the District reopened ERAP applications in November, applications closed in half a day, with residents applying for more than $20 million in rent assistance in just a few hours.
But councilmembers say ERAP can’t, or shouldn’t, help in all those cases. The bill stipulates tenants must show ERAP funds would cover everything they owe their landlords, or that they’ve reached a repayment plan to delay their evictions after applying for ERAP.
“The only way in which an ERAP application can save the day is if it can cover the full amount, that’s just the fact,” Frumin said.
Additionally, the legislation says the courts can punish landlords by holding them in contempt or waiving rent owed if they fail to cooperate with the ERAP process, Frumin said.
Councilmembers don’t expect the legislation will fix all their ERAP concerns. Parker said while he supported the legislation, he would like the Department of Human Services, which runs the program, to consider implementing multiple ERAP application portals at different times, or a lottery system. He said the current portal isn’t the most “equitable application,” because people may not be facing eviction at the exact moment it’s open, and then miss the opportunity to apply.
“It is a first-come, first-serve process that is often exhausted within hours, and that leaves many individuals who rightly have emergencies without the opportunity to provide,” Parker said.
At-large Councilmember Robert White said at the March 25 markup while he also supports the legislation, he has “some concerns” with the provision that allows people who missed the portal to apply for ERAP to delay their eviction so they can apply in the future, as this could continue to increase unpaid rent and harm the affordable housing market. It’s currently not clear how long evictions would be delayed, and in the past few years, ERAP has opened either once a year or once every three months.
“I want to make sure that’s a real defense and not something that anybody could claim as a blanket defense,” White said.
The D.C. Council passed the bill on its first reading, and will vote on it a second time in the coming months.
In an April 1 statement, Mayor Muriel Bowser said she will not support the act “in its current form” because it introduces “bureaucratic requirements” that will delay the courts. She said her Rebalancing Expectations for Neighbors, Tenants, and Landlords (RENTAL) Act, which she introduced on Feb. 12, would better reform the ERAP process to ensure the program maintains its purpose.
If approved in its original form by the D.C. Council, the RENTAL act would permanently reinstate the quicker eviction timelines in effect before the COVID-19 pandemic, roll back some protections for tenants seeking rental assistance, speed up evictions for individuals arrested or charged with violent crimes near the property and exclude certain buildings from the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act.
