Inside the internal turmoil between D.C. agencies, local police, and the National Security Council to clear homeless encampments

Meghann Abraham sitting outside MLK Library. Emails obtained by Street Sense between D.C. Police officers, Deputy Mayor Wayne Turnage, and the National Security Council surround her. Photo by Madi Koesler. Graphic by Keilah Tumaob

On the afternoon of Aug. 14, 2025, D.C. police walked the streets surrounding the White House looking for encampments. Officers took notes of where homeless people slept and sat, emails Street Sense obtained via public records request show. After the team of at least three walked the streets of downtown D.C., they created a list of 25 tents, tarps, and benches.

At least 14 of those sites would be removed by local police in federally-driven encampment clearings the next day, displacing over a dozen people. The week that followed — full of sweeps motivated by President Donald Trump’s hardline stance against visible homelessness — caused confusion and chaos among people experiencing homelessness in the District and changed the reality of living outside.

While it was immediately clear the closures in August of last year resulted from federal pressure, additional emails from that time obtained by Street Sense shed light on the weeks-long federal influence on D.C.’s homelessness policy, and how that week’s actions continue to echo a year after the takeover officially ended.

As jurisdictions across the country pass anti-camping legislation, the White House continues to push for “beautification” and criminalizing sleeping outside through executive orders and funding decisions. In the District, long-standing, multi-tent encampments have been eradicated as single-person encampment clearings have skyrocketed. As Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Wayne Turnage said during an oversight hearing earlier this year, D.C. has shifted from maintaining encampments to closing them, with the District on track to close twice as many encampments in 2026 as in 2025. The impact of the two-week crackdown on visible homelessness last summer lingers. And so do questions about what actually happened.

Federal interest in homelessness in D.C. began months before the takeover. On March 28, 2025, Trump signed an executive order creating the D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force to increase police presence in public areas and maximize immigration enforcement. The order specifically mentioned removing all homelessness on federal land, creating anxiety among outreach teams and encampment communities.

Emails obtained by Street Sense shed light on the taskforce’s early interest in the District’s response to homelessness.

In a thread beginning on May 2, 2025, Orville Greene, then the White House official in charge of the task force, who also served as the Homeland Security Council’s transnational threats director for narcotics and opioids, according to his emails, connected with a mix of local and federal agencies to establish the “Homelessness Working Group.”

“We look forward to helping you through any blockers to ensure the execution of President Trump’s Executive Order,” Greene ended his email.

On May 7, Talor Wasden, nee Allen, policy advisor for the National Security Council (NSC), responded. She listed the organizations that made up the group: the Federal Highway Administration, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the D.C. Department of Transportation, the Executive Office of the Mayor, the National Park Service (NPS), and the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Some of these agencies, including the NSC and MPD, would eventually collaborate on federally led encampment clearings in August 2025.

HUD Deputy Assistant Secretary Caitlyn McKenney replied to this thread with an attached proposal for an emergency shelter in D.C. for the group to discuss with the goal to “decrease unsheltered homelessness and increase public safety and access to public spaces.”

Street Sense has not obtained further communications from the working group’s discussions. But three months later, on Aug. 10, Trump posted photos of tents along I-66 on Truth Social. The next day, Trump declared “Liberation Day” during a press conference, officially invoking Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act, allowing the president to take control of MPD during an emergency, and deploying the National Guard to the District.

Anxiety, chaos, and poor interagency communication ensued over the following days as D.C.’s Office of the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services (DMHHS), which houses the city’s encampment team, cancelled scheduled encampment closures, turning instead to the tents photographed by Trump — setting a precedent of rapid-paced clearings with reduced notice and outreach.

Normally, the DMHHS encampment team partners with locally contracted outreach teams and the D.C. Department of Behavioral Services (DBH) to give encampment residents notice and offer shelter and storage for their belongings before clearings. While police are sometimes present at encampment closures, they are not led by law enforcement. At the time of the federal takeover, DMHHS’ protocol required the District give at least a week’s notice before scheduled engagements unless there were immediate health and safety concerns. All clearings also had to be justified by health and safety concerns until early 2025, when Turnage, who oversees DMHHS, said in an oversight hearing increased closures were “more consistent with the mayor’s goal that people don’t sleep outside.”

NPS has the authority to respond to homelessness on federal lands, like parks and monuments, but, unlike DMHHS, it is not required to provide prior notice or connect residents with outreach services.

DMHHS began preparing for the possibility of a federal surge on Aug. 7, internal emails show. In one email, in response to a concern from a community member, Turnage wrote, “If Trump declares an emergency and brings in the National Guard to supplant law enforcement, whether the encampment is on federal or District land will not matter. This will be a difficult three or four days.”

Emails the evening of Aug. 13 between Greene, who was detailed to the NSC, Turnage, Deputy Mayor for Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah, former D.C. Police Chief Pamela Smith, Chief Inspector Donald Snider — who commands the Capital Area Regional Fugitive Task Force for the U.S. Marshals Service and redacted parties from the U.S. Department of Justice established Turnage as the District’s point of contact for encampment removals that night. Turnage asked federal officials to give his team advance notice so they could marshal “necessary social support services.” This request would largely be ignored.

On the morning of Aug. 14, the District led a closure at the grassy field beside the Peace Institute — now named after the president — which Trump had posted photos of days earlier. It displaced at least eight residents. Despite the heightened attention, the process generally followed D.C.’s encampment protocol, which requires residents receive notice and be offered services; the normal groups of outreach workers, encampment team staff, biohazard engineers, and behavioral health workers just moved on a tighter schedule due to the federal pressure.

Outreach workers amongst the tents photographed by President Donald Trump along I-66. Photo by Madi Koesler

Following the clearing, Turnage took questions from the press. He told reporters the District did not have control of a list of encampments federal forces wanted to close, but he had received notice closures could begin that evening. “We don’t control the list. If we got it, we certainly will be happy to share it, but we don’t have a list right now,” Turnage said.

Internal emails obtained by Street Sense show that around the same time Turnage fielded questions, MPD officers, then under federal control, were developing a list of encampments, all within a roughly 10-block radius of the White House. At least 14 sites on the list would be the target of MPD clearings that would break District protocol and send shockwaves of fear across the city in the following days, though outreach workers and residents confirmed several of the other sites were impacted during the federal takeover.

The officers, whose names were redacted, sent their notes, at least some of which were in Comic Sans font, to Commander Jason Bagshaw to compile into a finalized encampment list at 1:31 p.m. One of the canvassing officers specified in a follow-up email to Bagshaw that “All sites provided were encampments of either tents or tarps cover park benches.”

An earlier version of the list from the internal MPD emails written in Comic Sans font.

While DMHHS and the D.C. Department of Human Services (DHS) maintain encampment lists and information on people sleeping outside for outreach purposes, neither Street Sense nor outreach workers are aware of police previously leading an effort to identify encampments.

The 25 site list sent by MPD’s Executive Assistant Chief of Specialized Operations Jeffery Carroll.

MPD’s then-Executive Assistant Chief of Specialized Operations Jeffery Carroll, now the interim chief, sent the finalized list in a separate chain between MPD officers, Turnage, Appiah, Smith, D.C. DHS Director Rachel Pierre, and encampment team members at 3:57 p.m., asking it not be shared outside the group.

That afternoon, DMHHS notices were placed at several of the tents near Washington Circle. The area was scheduled to be cleared at the end of August; the notices moved up the clearing to that upcoming Monday.

Closure notices became a point of contention between Washington Circle encampment resident Meghann Abraham and federal forces when officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Secret Service, and Homeland Security arrived around 9 p.m. later that night to clear the site. Abraham responded by showing them the notice she’d received from the District, insisting she had until Monday to relocate. The large group of federal agents took photos of the notice and surrounding tents, then left.

One of the sticker notices from DMHHS received by Washington Circle Park residents on Aug. 14, 2025. Photo by Madi Koesler

As this standoff ensued, then-U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi issued the now-nicknamed “Bondi Order” to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser that attempted to seize operational control of MPD. This essentially implemented Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Terrence Cole as the “Emergency Police Commissioner,” or the police chief. It also directed officers to enforce laws and regulations around unlawful occupancy of public spaces “to the maximum extent permissible by law.”

Federal forces regrouped in the circle around 9:30 p.m. and did not leave the area until around midnight, though they did not attempt to clear the encampment. Outreach workers and local government officials, under the impression the District had prevailed, reassured residents they would have until Monday to pack, relocate, and move into shelter if they wanted.

The next morning, everything shifted when Andy Wassenich, director of policy for Miriam’s Kitchen, received a call around 10:30 a.m. from a friend who worked in a building overlooking the District’s Downtown Day Services Center, where people experiencing homelessness often spend time. An influx of MPD officers had just arrived outside the day center, which was also included on MPD’s list of sites.

Immediately, Wassenich messaged a Signal group chat with other homelessness outreach providers and mutual aid partners. As outreach teams scrambled to mobilize to other sites on the list, MPD officers and multiple Department of Public Works (DPW) crews arrived nine blocks away at Washington Circle around 10:40 a.m. Without any advance notice, DPW workers began filling trash trucks with the tents and belongings of residents, many of whom were not present, as at least 15 officers stood watch.

A D.C. Department of Public Works employee tosses belongings at Washington Circle Park on Aug. 15, 2025. Photo by Madi Koesler

While Abraham was on the phone with her dad, MPD officers approached her, telling her, “We’re clearing all this up today.” Her boyfriend, who she shared her tent with, was at work, and her neighbors were nowhere to be found. As trash trucks surrounded the circle and DPW workers began to drag tents full of belongings into the street to dispose of them, Abraham rushed to decide what she would be able to carry away with her just as outreach workers arrived at the scene.

MPD and DPW crews then moved west from Washington Circle to continue to clear tents near Godey Lime Kiln, sites also on the MPD encampments list, as outreach workers raced after them on foot to attempt to reach residents before police.

Georgetown Ministry’s Outreach Coordinator Ben Zack helped the only resident present at 26 and L Street NW move his belongings as MPD arrived to the encampment. Photo by Madi Koesler

As MPD cars flashing their lights escorted trash trucks full of tents and furniture out of Washington Circle, it appeared the District’s encampment team had no idea. In an email sent by Turnage at 11:01 a.m. to various members of the team and other local agencies, he warned MPD might close Washington Circle before the District’s scheduled engagement three days later, despite his recommendation to them to wait.

“It was not clear to me from the conversation whether my advice will be heeded,” he wrote. “We are waiting to hear from federal officials and MPD regarding their plans for tonight and the weekend. By any metric, last night did not go well and they will regroup today.”

At this point, the Washington Circle encampment was already gone.

Meanwhile, the balance of power was shifting behind the scenes. Just after 5 p.m. that afternoon, outside of the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse, Bowser and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb addressed the media, revealing Judge Ana Reyes had restored Smith’s position as MPD chief.

“We have made it very clear that we have laws in our city,” Schwalb told the crowd.

MPD declined to comment on questions related to the Bondi order and any directives regarding encampments issued by Cole, who Trump had placed in charge of MPD, between Aug. 14 and 15, 2025. To the knowledge of outreach workers and Street Sense, the only MPD-led clearings took place while Cole was in control of MPD. The D.C. Attorney General also did not respond to a request for comment.

While the ruling re-established local control of MPD, it did not stop federal influence, and the fight between local agencies and federal forces to control unsheltered homelessness in the District was just beginning.

In the week after the Washington Circle clearing, DMHHS, DHS, and DBH grappled with how to respond to federal requests for encampment clearings, internal emails show.

Late into the night on Aug. 16, Greene asked Turnage for his “urgent assistance” assigning a point of contact to assist “relocating the homeless encountered by law enforcement [in] the District tonight and tomorrow night.”

Turnage responded the next morning, appearing confused, asking about the federal clearings, and noting he was informed the “encampment phase of the operation [was] complete.” He again urged Greene to inform the District if encampment sweeps continued, so it could direct its outreach teams for assistance.

Multiple internal interagency meetings wrestled with how to respond to one-off encampment requests from MPD and the White House, the impacts of federal clearings, and how to adapt. An agenda Turnage sent to his administrative assistant on Aug. 20 for one of these meetings includes items such as: “Report on Latest Census For Homeless Encampments,” “Resources Required To Execute A More Expedited Encampment Clearing Process, Post Federal Surge” and “Changes Needed To Implement A More Appropriately Aggressive FD –12 Process.”

“I will use the information from this meeting to develop a communication to the [city administrator] with specific recommendations to expedite encampment closures following the surge, and to have a more efficacious FD-12 process,” Turnage added.

Over the first week of the takeover, emails from Turnage suggest a so-called “tour of duty” began with District staff on 24-hour standby for federal agencies to call about homelessness. An Aug. 20 email from a DMHHS staff member notes Bowser specifically asked for behavioral health and encampment teams “to be ready for deployment once a concern is flagged.”

Emails from Aug. 21 confirm at least one federal official, Greene, was still directly involved at this point. Turnage wrote to his team at 7:28 p.m., “But Orville [Greene] is saying ‘hold your people until I speak with [Jennifer Reed, director at Office of Budget and Performance Management]’” regarding sending home staff on-call for evening encampment engagements.

This email is the last documentation Street Sense obtained on federal involvement with closures. But outreach workers say federal pressure remains, continuing to cause displacement and disruption.

When asked specifically about collaboration with the White House, MPD, federal law enforcement, and the NSC on encampment clearings between Aug. 11, 2025 and Sept. 13, 2025, a DMHHS spokesperson stated, “There were no special collaborations initiated to report on behalf of DMHHS” and deferred to MPD and federal agencies “to speak to their process on encampment engagements.”

MPD, for its part, deferred to DMHHS and stated, “The MPD’s role in encampment removals is limited to maintaining peace during engagement events related to encampment protocols.” The White House did not respond to requests for comment.

On Aug. 19, then-Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing 48 encampments were cleared by “multi-agency teams [and] MPD Patrol units.” Street Sense has never been able to independently confirm this number, and the White House has not provided lists of locations or dates despite multiple requests. In addition to the 25 sites on the list, many of which were cleared, there were three more federally mandated clearings and seven District-led clearings between Aug. 18 and Sept. 1, according to DMHHS. Combined with the closures near the Peace Institute and clearings mentioned in internal emails, this could account for up to 40 sites.

Additionally, since the announcement of the Safe and Beautiful Task Force, NPS has cleared 169 encampments on federal land, the agency wrote in a statement on Aug. 28, 2026. NPS declined to provide lists of sites impacted or dates to confirm if these sites were included in the number Leavitt mentioned and has not responded to Street Sense public records requests for the information.

Despite claims by Trump at a rally in August of this year in South Carolina that “The homeless are no longer there [in DC] in the tents that were all over the place,” hundreds of people are still living outside in the District and have only been forced to become more mobile.

Following the clearings, Abraham and her boyfriend moved to a secluded part of the woods roughly two hours by bus from Washington Circle. But after their tent burned down last winter, the two have found themselves sleeping outside MLK Library, where the couple met.

Since moving back to downtown, Abraham’s been able to reconnect with caseworkers but feels let down by the outreach system. She’s been waiting for a housing voucher for about two years and transitional housing for four months.

“They’re just making you go around in circles and there is no way out of it,” Abraham said.

Even with new enforcement of a sleeping ban at the library, they plan to stay in the area because they count on the groups that come by with food, clothes, and toiletries. Abraham also relies on the internet access and library computers to complete her online college coursework at the University of Maryland Global Campus, where she is pursuing her bachelor’s in Homeland Security, supported by Pell Grants and student loans.

In the year since the clearing, Abraham’s only seen one of her old neighbors once, while eating in the Miriam’s Kitchen dining room.

She had him write down his number on a piece of paper because she shares a phone with her boyfriend, but on the walk home it started to rain. When she got back to her encampment and pulled out the number, the rain had smudged the writing. She hasn’t seen any of her old neighbors since.

“I don’t know where they went,” Abraham said. “It’s kinda stressful to have someone in your life for a year and then have no way to contact them. That’s what all this displacement is doing.”

Meghann Abraham beside her belongings at MLK Library, 2026. Photo by Madi Koesler

Outreach teams echo this sentiment. Since several of the clearings last year did not work with District teams to provide outreach, caseworkers have lost contact with dozens of clients, cutting off crucial access to services.

When residents move between the three Street Outreach Network’s provider zones, there is no communication between the District-contracted service providers. Providers can see outreach history in a shared database if residents reconnect. But this is not guaranteed.

Amid a voucher drought that continues to delay residents’ transition off the streets, outreach workers are fearful of the continued communications disruptions and their lasting impact on people living in encampments. Outreach workers emphasized that without proper communication, repeated clearings can create unnecessary trauma.

“Perhaps society has always felt this way, but to have it said so blankly and then to have the action be so clear, it is felt deeply by our guests,” Claire Wilson, executive director of Georgetown Ministries, said. “This past year, we’ve seen a lot more trauma, a lot more complexity in terms of behaviors. A lot of people are feeling very, very defeated.”

According to outreach workers and government employees, the encampments team is trying to adhere to normal protocol when possible, but federal pressure continues to make this difficult.

Prior to the federal takeover, outreach workers say there was more communication from DMHHS ahead of encampment closures. But now, on multiple occasions, outreach workers say they are not properly notified of scheduled engagements by the encampment team. Outreach workers have found out about scheduled engagements first from clients, after they received stickers marking their belongings for cleanup. DMHHS has also repeatedly cancelled interagency monthly meetings between DHS outreach partners and the encampments team, according to one of the outreach partners.

The District has cleared more encampments so far this year than in 2024 or 2025. The monthly average for clearings for those years sat between eight to nine per month, but according to data from DMHHS, the monthly average so far this year is closer to 17 clearings.

Clearings this year also look different. Outreach workers and legal advocates have noticed increases in clearings of single-person, mobile set-ups that would be less likely to draw attention in the past. This is especially true of Ward 2, which includes most of downtown, where there’s a high number of federal forces. If tents do pop up, they are almost immediately tagged for removal, outreach workers said. There are no longer visible, long-standing, multi-tent encampments in D.C. as a result of these efforts, but people remain outside.

DMHHS denies any of its policies have changed. A spokesperson repeated many times in a statement to Street Sense that “The posture of the DMHHS Encampment Response Team has remained consistent as it relates to supporting service engagements and connection efforts for vulnerable residents residing in encampments, while continuing to address all health and safety concerns or intrusions connected to encampments on public space.”

Outreach workers, advocates, and people living outside continue to argue against displacement. Instead, they’re urging the federal and local government to shift focus and funding from increasing clearings to housing vouchers and wrap-around services that focus more on residents’ well-being than erasing visible homelessness.

“If you really don’t want to look at us, you really need to provide services — give us actual options that are viable,” Abraham said. “A lot of us are down and out of it. We need a hand up. Give us the hand up.”

National Park Service Has Neglected Anacostia Park

A missing lamppost in Anacostia Park.

On June 26, 2026, the National Park Service (NPS) officially invited the public to celebrate July 4th at Anacostia Park, “a vibrant community gathering space along the Anacostia River with expansive, open-air views of Washington’s July 4 fireworks,” the press release said. Moreover, the agency promised a fireworks display on the water itself, a first, as part of the semiquincentennial.

“Anacostia Park is one of Washington’s most beloved community spaces,” said Jessica Bowron, an NPS comptroller. “We’re proud to welcome neighbors and visitors from across the region to share in this July 4 tradition along the river.”

Imagine the excitement of Ward 7 and 8 residents, who for the first time would not have to trek across the city to the National Mall to celebrate the national birthday. The reality proved disappointing.

Portable toilets in front of non-functional toilets at the Anacostia Park Pirate Ship Playground. The water fountain to the right is also broken.

“Unlike across the (Anacostia) River, there was no free water, no water stations or anything provided for the public within the entire footprint from Nicholson Street over to Marion Barry Avenue,” wrote Tom Donohue, commissioner of Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 8A01 in a blog post. “Even the park’s permanent infrastructure failed our community; the existing outdoor water dispenser wasn’t working at all,” Donohue observed scathingly.

Donohue’s single member district covers the Fairlawn and Anacostia neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River in Ward 8, where the fireworks display was held in front of the National Park Police headquarters.

The few families attending struggled to the display along muddy, unilluminated paths. Much of the waterfront was fenced off, including the park’s popular bike trail. In contrast, just a few miles to the west on the National Mall, NPS rolled out the proverbial red carpet for attendees.

July 4th was yet another example of the Park Service’s many broken promises regarding Anacostia Park, whose basic facilities remain in disrepair.

Anacostia Park

Anacostia Park is the second-largest federal park in the DC park system after Rock Creek Park. Administered by NPS, it covers more than 1,200 acres. Divided into C, D, E and F sections, it stretches from the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in the south to Benning Road in the north. It was established on reclaimed mudflats in 1918 and hugs the shoreline of the Anacostia River for five miles.

The National Park Police headquarters and the offices of National Capital Parks-East (NACE), an administrative division of the NPS, are located in Anacostia Park Section C. NACE manages over 8,000 acres of parks and historic sites in both DC and Maryland.

Anacostia Park Sections D, E and F include:

• The Pirate Ship Playground

• The Anacostia Park skating pavilion, built in 1976

• River Terrace Park

Collectively, Anacostia Park serves over 155,000 residents of Wards 7 and 8 and, according to the nonprofit Anacostia Park advocacy group Friends of Anacostia Park, also welcomes more than 1.7 million visitors annually from across the city and the country.

Despite this, Anacostia Park’s facilities are decaying due to decades of deferred maintenance ‒ an accumulated $524 million in deferred maintenance and repairs across all NACE facilities, including Anacostia and River Terrace parks, according to an NPS infrastructure fact sheet published in 2025. Playground equipment is outdated and unsafe, toilets and lights are broken, gazebos leak, road and trail surfaces are crumbling, picnic tables are burned from discarded grill coals, and water dispensers, like the one pointed out by Donohue in his blog post, are often rusted and inoperable.

The cracked and weedy surface of River Terrace’s tennis courts.

“We are intentional in our investments in parks east of the Anacostia River and committed to listening to park neighbors, engaging with communities and fostering vibrant and accessible parks,” stated Tara D. Morrison, National Capital Parks-East superintendent in a January 2025 NACE press release. “These efforts improve park amenities and strengthen the bonds we share with the community, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity to enjoy their neighborhood national parks.” 

Despite Morrison’s claim, in River Terrace Park (this writer’s neighborhood) the single gazebo is slowly collapsing. Unstable flooring, missing roof shingles, chipped concrete and exposed electrical wiring are risks navigated for years by families who gather in the park weekly to celebrate reunions and birthdays.

The Promise

In February 2024, NACE leadership invited residents from across Northeast and Southeast DC to attend community engagement sessions intended to gather feedback for upgrades, repairs and improvements to Anacostia and River Terrace Park, in addition to 12 other NACE sites across Southeast and Northeast DC.

The federal Great American Outdoors Act (GAOA) National Parks and Public Lands Legacy Restoration Fund (LRF) allocated funds for repairs and upgrades, Superintendent Morrison explained to residents at the Langston Golf Course Clubhouse. Passed in 2020, the GAOA LRF, a bipartisan-backed law, allocated $1.9 billion over five years (2021 to 2025) to address deferred maintenance backlogs in national parks across the continental US and its territories. At the time of writing, over 396 projects have been funded, according to the Department of the Interior GAOA website.

The GAOA LRF would provide $11.8 million to address the backlog of deferred maintenance and repair across NACE-managed sites, according to an agency press release issued on June 6, 2023. Due to the extensive scope of work across 12 other sites, including River Terrace Park, Kenilworth Park, Fort Davis Park, Fort Dupont Park and the Parklands area of Shepherd Parkway, NACE would draw an additional $22,217,000 from the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund to rehabilitate urban recreation areas, according to a 2026 Department of the Interior fact sheet.

River Terrace residents present at the engagement session were cautiously optimistic about this news. Rusty playground equipment would be replaced, NPS representatives confirmed. Tennis courts would have their nets fixed and surfaces repaved. Fencing and lighting would be repaired and the brittle, sun-scorched playground equipment would be replaced.

NACE leaders promised to repair facilities but warned that no interim maintenance of damaged park facilities would occur until contractors had been procured. With funds drawn in FY 2024, the work would commence in late 2025 or early 2026.

It’s been over two years since the Langston Golf Course Clubhouse community engagement session, and there is no sign of the promised work being started, let alone completed. In the interim, and at breakneck speed, NPS awarded a no-bid contract for maintenance work on the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, and the Department of the Interior spent over $5 million on regilding James Earle Fraser’s arts of peace and arts of war statues on Lincoln Memorial Circle.

River Terrace Park’s collapsing gazebo.

The repairs and maintenance that residents using parks east of the Anacostia River were promised two years ago are not happening in their neighborhoods but appear to be taking place in record time in parks across the rest of the city. According to a post on the Department of the Interior’s X (formerly Twitter) page in May, NPS staff had replaced over 1,000 benches across the National Mall and other NPS-managed land. The White House boasted that more than 20 fountains and 30 statues, in addition to 130 new trash cans, had been repaired, renovated or installed as part of President Trump’s Make the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful Act.

While a gargantuan, federally funded makeover of NPS land is underway using taxpayer money, it appears that parks east of the Anacostia River are being overlooked. For residents in Wards 7 and 8 it feels like a slap in the face.

Neighbors’ Frustrations

“I can’t even keep track of the conversations I’ve had and the people I’ve talked to, how many times I’ve been told it’s a priority,” said Devon Brophy, a River Terrace resident and chair of the River Terrace Community Organization’s (RTCO) Environmental Committee. Brophy also attended NACE’S community engagement session in February 2024.

River Terrace Park is less than a 10-minute walk from Brophy’s front door. As a practicing architect, Brophy has offered NPS ideas to improve River Terrace Park. She has documented the dilapidated condition of the picnic tables dotted throughout the park, many of which have been damaged by fire, and has sent this documentation to NACE chief of staff Michael Donato. Brophy has scores of emails that record six years of conversations.

At monthly RTCO community meetings (at which this writer was present) neighbors shared concerns about the park and NACE leadership’s lack of communication. They wanted to know when the long-promised work would take place.

Brophy recalls being told at the Langston meeting that the upgrades would kick off late 2025, early 2026. “I’m thinking that a project doesn’t take that long to get funded and it doesn’t take that long to design.”

As a contractor for federally financed projects, Brophy knows how long procurement and contracting can take when working through the federal government’s complex administrative systems. The recent news about warp-speed repairs and upgrades to western federal District parks has left her feeling angry and hopeless.

What Happened?

Searches on http://www.usaspending.gov and http://www.openomb.org for GAOA LRF spending for FY 2020 to FY 2025 yield scant detail on the use of this funding in and around parks east of the Anacostia River. An NPS FY 2024 Budget Justification Data Sheet lists just $46,327 spent in FY 2024 on the Rehabilitate Urban Recreation Areas project, a program aimed at addressing deferred maintenance across 12 NACE sites using money from the GAOA LRF.

At the time of writing, the GAOA LRF project tracking website lists the status of work on NACE facilities as “under procurement.” Of the original $11.8 million, only 38% has been allocated, predominantly for the planning, design and approval required for work on federal land, said Sharon E. Nichols, director of communications for Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D). The remaining 62% is unobligated and can be used in FY 2026-27, Nichols confirmed.

Updates from NACE leadership on the progress of GAOA LRF-funded work have been difficult to obtain. “The Great American Outdoors Act-funded project to improve River Terrace Park will likely not see construction begin in the next couple of years. In the meantime, our maintenance team is working to address the work,” NACE chief of staff Donato stated in recent email correspondence with the RTCO’s environmental committee.

Stonewalling?

According to an NPS spokesperson, in response to a request for comment, “The design and planning of the River Terrace and Anacostia Parks project is ongoing. It is the priority of the National Park Service to ensure that stewardship of public lands is fiscally responsible and meets the public’s needs.”

In late June, this writer filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Department of the Interior regarding the use of GAOA LRF funds for deferred maintenance and repair at Anacostia and River Terrace Parks for FY 2024-25. The FOIA included a request for any documentation indicating that these funds were reallocated to other uses, which many River Terrace residents suspect.

A burned picnic table in Anacostia Park

No such records were available, the department responded. Future communications should be directed to the NPS, the department confirmed. NPS’s FOIA office subsequently redirected queries back to the department. Tammy Stidham, the NPS associate regional director for lands and planning, declined to be interviewed for this story. Why the stonewalling?

According to Scott Kratz, the founding director of the 11th Street Bridge Park and president and CEO of Building Bridges Across the River (BBAR), “Over the past several years, NACE has led a community engagement effort to rethink Anacostia Park, and it got some money to start doing some of that work. It wasn’t an insignificant amount. I don’t know where that money is and I don’t know what happened to the plans that came out of that community engagement.” He added, “They had amazing plans. I imagine everyone’s kind of in defensive mode. Candidly, my assumption is that everyone is just crouched down.”

Was the Money Redirected?

Edward Stierli, the mid-Atlantic regional director for the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), whose organization played an outsized role in the passage of the GAOA in 2020, cited “a lack of transparency related to the funding for new construction projects underway in DC.” Stierli is hesitant to speculate on any reallocation of GAOA LRF funds from Anacostia Park to projects elsewhere in the city. “I think it’s a question that needs congressional oversight and a clear explanation for taxpayers and residents in Anacostia,” he said.

Given the start of construction on President Trump’s many vanity projects, such as the West Potomac Golf Course and the Garden of American Heroes, the source of their funding is a fair question, Stierli said. As is the status of deferred maintenance and repair across parks east of the Anacostia River.

Glimmerings of Hope

River Terrace residents have noticed sporadic repairs being made by NACE staff in their park over the last few months. The gaping hole at the bottom of the kids’ slide was repaired, and Cherry Pickers arrived at the basketball courts to fix burned-out floodlights.

In May, a maintenance worker arrived at the gazebo in River Terrace Park to replace missing roof shingles but quickly left after telling a local resident that the structure’s age and condition necessitated specialized attention.

Over in Anacostia Park, NPS workers were spotted repainting lampposts. NPS recently contracted to renovate the concessions facilities at the skating pavilion. The award carried no confirmation of start or completion dates.

While residents who use the beautiful green spaces east of the Anacostia River are happy to see progress, none of this work resembles the grand vision NPS outlined in its community engagement sessions more than four years ago.

“They talked a big game,” Brophy says of the meeting. “I was skeptical. The GAOA funding was fantastic, but NPS needed to do something with it.”

Matthew McClure is a resident of River Terrace in Ward 7. This article was supported by a grant from Spotlight DC: Capitol City Fund for Investigative Journalism. Spotlight DC encourages the submission for proposals by independent journalists. For more information, visit www.spotlightdc.org.

NOTES:

Senator Steve Daines (R-Montana) introduced the America the Beautiful Act last May. The act would extend and expand the National Parks and Public Lands Legacy Restoration Fund for eight years, with $2 billion in annual funding. The act is pending passage in the Senate.

To read ANC Commissioner Tom Donohue’s blog, visit www.anc8a01.com/blog/broken-promises-and-pitch-black-paths-what-went-wrong-at-the-anacostia-park-fireworks.

For more information on GAOA, visit www.doi.gov/gaoa-project-data.

The National-Capital-Parks-East-Deferred-Maintenance-and-Repairs-Factsheet is available at www.nps.gov/subjects/infrastructure/upload/National-Capital-Parks-East-Deferred-Maintenance-and-Repairs-Factsheet.pdf.

For information about Rehabilitate Urban Recreation Areas, visit www.doi.gov/gaoa-lrf-projects-action.

The NPS project page for Anacostia Park is available at www.nps.gov/nace/learn/news/restoring-recreation-areas.htm.

The NPS FY 2025 Budget Justification Project Data Sheet is available at www.doi.gov/sites/default/files/fy2024-pds-nps-508.pdf.

The NPS June 6, 2023, press release can be found at www.nps.gov/nace/learn/news/national-park-service-expected-to-receive-more-than-11-million-to-improve-parks-in-southeast-washington-d-c.htm.

For information on the National Parks and Public Land Legacy Restoration Fund, visit www.doi.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2026-04/washington-dc-gaoa-factsheet-2026.pdf.

Podcast: D.C.'s DoorDash Revolt and Southwest's Once-In-a-Century Rebuild

On the newest Dream City Podcast: why D.C. activists are calling for a DoorDash boycott after the company supported congressional legislation restricting the District’s ability to change local taxes and fees.

Cuneyt Dil and Tom Sherwood also explore the once-in-a-century opportunity to remake Southwest Washington’s sprawling federal enclave, including the possible demolition of the hulking Forrestal Building and plans for new housing, offices, schools and cultural attractions. Also, a new report details how MPD’s crime-statistics safeguards broke down.

The Dream City Podcast holds the powerful accountable and takes you inside D.C.’s business and political worlds. Along the way: Revelatory conversations with city officials, business leaders, and the best-sourced journalists in town. Dream City is supported by SpotlightDC.

Podcast: Waymo Leader Makes the Case For Robotaxis in D.C.

Does D.C. want robotaxis? Will Waymo kill jobs?

On the Dream City podcast, hear directly from Matt Walsh, Waymo's regional head of state and local public policy. Cuneyt Dil presses Walsh on labor’s warnings about lost driving jobs, the company’s safety record, and whether a multibillion-dollar technology company is prepared to make a significant investment in D.C. They also get into Waymo’s response to labor's accusations that it is trying to “steamroll” the city, the possibility of a deal with unions and Janeese Lewis George, and when riders might finally be able to take a driverless car to DCA or Dulles.

Podcast: Will D.C. Approve Waymo's Self-Driving Cars?

The fight over Waymo's self-driving cars in D.C. is shaping up to be a big one. Labor unions, which fear the loss of gig economy jobs, have already started protesting. Waymo counters that it will hire hundreds of people to maintain its robotaxis.

On the Dream City Podcast, Cuneyt Dil digs into the coming fight with Mark Segraves of NBC4. They also break down Vice President J.D. Vance's rental of a sprawling estate in Virginia and the valuable naming rights and seat licenses included in the Commanders stadium deal.

D.C. Tenant Advocates Sound Alarm About a RENTAL Act Loophole

(Maddie Poore)

The elevators in Harry Gural’s rent-controlled building on Connecticut Avenue haven’t been reliable for over a decade. It’s part of a string of maintenance problems that have plagued his older building. “They just haven’t fixed things for years and years and years,” he said.

But now, Gural wonders whether he should have a new concern: If his landlord significantly renovates the building to fix these outstanding issues, he and other tenants could be at risk of losing crucial rights.

Last year, the D.C. Council passed a bill overhauling the city’s housing law and significantly weakening major protections for tenants. Mayor Muriel Bowser first announced the Rebalancing Expectations for Neighbors, Tenants, and Landlords (RENTAL) Act in February 2025 — aiming, she said, to address a rent-delinquency crisis and encourage more private investment in market-rate housing. Housing and tenant advocates immediately sounded the alarm about the bill, arguing that it stripped tenants of their most crucial rights, including eviction protections and renters’ rights to buy their building. But most of the city’s lawmakers eventually rallied behind it.

“We are building housing too slowly,” Councilmember Robert White, chairman of the housing committee, said at the time. “We are driving landlords and investors away. We cannot lose sight of the impact on real people.”

The law passed later that year with 10 councilmembers voting in favor. Following pushback from advocates, some older buildings — like Gural’s — were spared the loss of some rights in the final statute. Advocates believed it was a hard-won reprieve in a law they broadly disliked. But less than a year after passage, developers, tenant advocates, and real estate attorneys say there is confusion about that supposed concession. Older buildings are being subjected to RENTAL Act rules even though legislators and advocates say they shouldn't be — and it’s threatening to dramatically expand the number of tenants losing their rights.

At the center of the issue is the way the RENTAL Act erodes the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), a landmark housing law passed in 1980 in response to the city’s affordable housing crisis. The law gives renters the first right of refusal to buy their building or to choose a buyer when it goes up for sale. For D.C.’s renters, TOPA isn’t just a way to purchase their building — it’s also a tool they can use to negotiate with a potential buyer, pushing for things like repairs or caps on rent increases. Over the past 40 years, the law has created or preserved more than 16,000 affordable housing units, according to the Coalition for Nonprofit Housing and Economic Development.

One of the RENTAL Act’s most consequential changes included exempting all buildings constructed in the last 15 years from TOPA. While the RENTAL Act included a series of changes to TOPA, this one affected approximately 81,000 existing units and untold more in the future, creating a "historic loss of tenants’ rights," according to Mychal Cohen, a senior policy analyst at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.

But today, ambiguous wording in the new law and confusing guidance from the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) is creating uncertainty about what counts as a new building under the law, tenant advocates, developers, and real estate professionals told The 51st. Some sellers are already taking advantage of the lack of clarity and are marketing older, rent-controlled buildings that have been renovated as “new construction,” and thus also TOPA- exempt.

This behavior has undermined one of the slim tenant protections advocates were able to preserve in the law, they say. (In a last-minute amendment, most 2-4 unit buildings also lost their TOPA rights under the act). Tenant organizers fought to retain TOPA rights for tenants in renovated buildings, and the D.C. Council’s Committee on Housing said they excised that particular exemption for fear that landlords would rush to renovate just to wiggle out of TOPA.

“Improvements are just part of what you do as a landlord,” said Gural, who is a longtime advocate for tenants’ rights. “I'm not sure why that should give you a TOPA exemption.”

Like many tenant organizers and advocates, he sees the change as linked to a larger unraveling of the city’s protections for renters in favor of commercial interests.

“Tenants are just run over like a truck, and they're looking for some hand in the destiny of their building, and that's why they find it offensive if their TOPA rights are eroded,” Gural said.

When New Means Renovated

As the RENTAL Act is written, a property can be exempt from TOPA if it receives a permanent certificate of occupancy for a “new multifamily building” in the last 15 years. This is a document that confirms a building has met all regulatory requirements and is officially safe for habitation. But the D.C. Department of Buildings (DOB) grants new permanent certificates of occupancy for substantial renovations to existing buildings as well as for new ones. This has led to confusion, said Dennis Cravedi, Senior Vice President at commercial real estate law firm Horvath & Tremblay. The law could be interpreted to say that a landlord who renovates or redevelops their existing building could also qualify for the TOPA exemption, he said.

The law doesn’t clarify what “new construction” means when it comes to this TOPA exemption, said DHCD spokesperson Timothy Wilson. The agency "interprets the law to mean that properties that underwent substantial rehabilitation or gut renovation are not exempt from TOPA unless they qualify under the new construction exemption, which requires a permanent Certificate of Occupancy issued within the past 15 years.”

This, however, is exactly the problem, advocates say. Applying DHCD’s interpretation means that an older property that undergoes a major modernization may be considered a new building after securing a brand-new permanent certificate, allowing landlords of decades-old buildings to claim the "new construction" shield.

According to a Department of Buildings (DOB) spokesperson, a newly issued permanent certificate of occupancy alone cannot prove whether a building is “new construction or a substantial renovation or conversion.” Identifying whether a building is actually new construction, they said, would require looking beyond the permanent certificate of occupancy to review the building permits and construction plans.

With the law so unclearly defined, local attorneys are bracing for confusion. Attorneys in the Real Estate Practice Group at law firm Ballard Spahr alerted clients after a January meeting with DHCD that a full rollout of formal guidance on the changes to TOPA could take up to two years, noting that parts of the law “are unclear and subject to interpretation.”

The real-world consequences of this regulatory confusion are already playing out in the market. A recent listing by brokerage firm Marcus and Millichap advertises a 36-unit property at 5010 Southern Avenue SE as completely TOPA-exempt new construction, although it’s more than 60 years old.

Lorenzo Wooten, the listing broker, told The 51st that the property was fully renovated in 2015. Wooten said DHCD explicitly advised him that because more than half of the building was renovated and received a new permanent certificate of occupancy in 2015, it qualified as new construction. (DHCD denies this, saying they have “not provided any formal or informal guidance establishing a renovation threshold for an exemption.")

Wooten is not the only one using an interpretation of the law that would exempt renovated buildings from TOPA protections. The Small Multifamily Owners Association, a landlord lobbying group, hosted a webinar in March where Terrence Laney, the administrator of the Rental Conversion and Sale Division — the part of DHCD that manages TOPA — suggested that buildings undergoing substantial renovations could qualify for the law’s 15-year TOPA exemption. (Laney has since been placed on leave amid accusations of conflicts of interest).

This interpretation threatens to exempt thousands of older renovated buildings that received new permanent certificates in the last 15 years. Just in the last two-and-a-half years, DOB issued 5,798 permanent certificates of occupancy, according to the agency’s own data. Of those, nearly 80% were for modifications to existing structures. New construction accounted for only 986 certificates.

Laney was asked in the webinar, which was reviewed by The 51st, if gut renovations qualified as new construction. His response was: "If the permanent certificate of occupancy has been issued in the last 15 years, which designates that as new construction, it is exempt."

Similar reliance on a permanent certificate of occupancy to determine whether a building is new is used in a sample letter for landlords to send to tenants included in DHCD's Frequently Asked Questions on the RENTAL Act.

This kind of conflicting guidance is alarming legislators and tenant advocates alike.

“I worry that there is misleading information coming directly from the D.C. government that may be confusing tenants about their rights,” said Mel Zahnd, Supervising Attorney in the Housing Law Unit at Legal Aid DC.

Confusing paper trail

Tenant advocates and legislators said that Laney’s interpretation misses what was clearly the spirit of the law.

Robert White, who just won the race to become D.C.’s delegate to Congress and helped shape the final version of the law and pushed for its passage, strongly disputes it, saying that the law was meant to exempt newly constructed buildings or office-to-residential conversions from TOPA protections, not additions or renovations.

“We expect the Executive to directly address allegations that DHCD is promulgating guidance contrary to the law's intent,” White’s office told The 51st. 

"The clear and unambiguous legislative intent was to limit the “new construction” exemption to actual new construction,” said Joel Cohn, legislative director for the Office of the Tenant Advocate, the D.C. agency that offers legal support for renters.

Wilson said DHCD’s job, however, is to “apply the statute as written.” The agency is currently reviewing 13 claims of new construction exemption and said the agency’s role is to “evaluate documentation showing whether a property meets the criteria for new construction,” rather than assessing whether a property has been renovated or the scope of that renovation.

Wilson also said that “future rulemaking could provide additional clarity.” The risk to tenants is further heightened because DHCD doesn’t appear to confirm the existence of a permanent certificate of occupancy when reviewing claims for TOPA exemption. According to Wilson, the agency may find a TOPA exemption claim deficient if “materials are missing, incomplete, or clearly inconsistent with statutory requirements.” But if an issue isn’t identified, “it does not independently verify Certificates of Occupancy beyond this.”

A review of DOB records for Wooten’s listing at 5010 Southern Ave SE, for instance, does not show a permanent certificate of occupancy issued in the past 15 years, and Wooten did not explain the discrepancy or provide a copy of the certificate to The 51st. Mercedes Lemp, President and CEO of Housing Up, the nonprofit that owns the property through an LLC, did not answer questions about the claimed exemption, simply sending a copy of the 1996 permanent certificate of occupancy in response.

DHCD’s limited verification could mean that if individual tenants receive a notification that their building is not subject to TOPA as a result of the RENTAL Act’s new construction exemption, it is up to them to challenge this claim on their own (or with the help of a tenant advocate, if they’re able to get one). While renters have opportunities under the law to challenge a TOPA exemption, the confusing nature of the exemption makes the process almost impossible for most tenants to navigate.

With little protection for tenants, advocates are already seeing a wave of questionable exemptions.

According to Cohn, his office is flagging “very problematic language,” including “wild characterizations of the actual law,” in the exemption notices that landlords are issuing to tenants.

Tenants lose out in a changing market

For tenants, the threat posed by this new potential TOPA exemption for renovated buildings — as well as the broader erosion of TOPA under the RENTAL Act — extends beyond maintenance concerns to a fundamental erosion of their influence.

“It’s not about buying the building,” said Gural, who recently received a notification from his landlord that he won’t have TOPA rights as a result of a different provision in the RENTAL Act (which his tenant association is challenging). “It’s about having a seat at the table … having a hand in deciding what happens to the building.”

It’s why advocates were so worried about the passage of the RENTAL Act — it included so many carve-outs to TOPA that it threatens to swallow the law entirely. The weakening of TOPA is all the more concerning, Gural said, given the growing influence of private equity on D.C.'s housing market. These large companies often boost profits by hiking rents and slashing services before eventually offloading the building.

Moreover, the law’s effects on the market may not be what many proponents of the RENTAL Act intended. While supporters said that removing TOPA protections would encourage investment in new housing, some real estate industry professionals told The 51st that confusion around the application of the law has created uncertainty, which isn’t good for business. “The RENTAL Act didn't really move the needle one way or the other,” Cravedi said. "If the goal was to really change the market or investor perception in D.C., then no, it has not had a big impact.”

As real estate and title attorney Kevin Bayly observes, the market values predictability above all. "You may have liked it or not liked it,” he said of traditional TOPA rules, “but you knew how it worked.”

One D.C. developer, who requested anonymity, was more blunt in his assessment of the legislation: “They fucked up.”

This story was edited by Abigail Higgins, Natalie Delgadillo, and Benny Peterson.

Podcast: Trump's Latest Attack on D.C. and a Looming Tax Fight

President Trump is calling out Janeese Lewis George, winner of D.C.'s Democratic primary for mayor. Trump attacks her as a "communist" but says he'd meet with her. On the Dream City Podcast, Cuneyt Dil and Tom Sherwood break down whether D.C.’s incoming left can find any workable ground with the White House.

Plus: The next major battle at the Wilson Building will be over taxes. Cuneyt and Tom dig into the pressure to raise new revenue after the city’s budget crunch, what kinds of tax hikes progressives may pursue, and how much room they really have with Congress still looming over D.C. affairs.

Podcast: The Socialist Sweep in D.C.'s Primaries

On the heels of a wave of democratic socialist victories in D.C.'s primaries, the Dream City podcast analyzes the results.

Aparna Raj, winner of the Ward 1 D.C. Council Democratic primary, tells hosts Cuneyt Dil and Tom Sherwood why she thinks a message of affordability resonated with voters. Chuck Thies, a veteran D.C. strategist, also breaks down Janeese Lewis Georges's sweeping mayoral primary victory, why Kenyan McDuffie’s campaign never found its footing, and what the results say about the city’s political direction.

Podcast: Trump Just Jumped Into D.C.'s Mayoral Race

Days before D.C.'s primary elections, President Trump threatened the District over its mayoral race. He said in the Oval Office that if Janeese Lewis George wins, "Maybe we take back Washington."

In this pre-election episode of the Dream City podcast, Cuneyt Dil and Tom Sherwood consider the paths to victory for the two leading candidates--Lewis George and Kenyan McDuffie--and the kind of voters they'll need to turn out.

The Dream City podcast is supported by SpotlightDC.

D.C. has a food access problem. Advocates say Bowser’s budget would make it worse.

(Maddie Poore)

When Mariah Francis heard that the work she was doing on grocery store access in D.C. was in jeopardy, she jumped into action.

A Ward 1 resident and SNAP recipient, Francis has been helping research the barriers low-income families in D.C. and Baltimore face accessing grocery stores since last summer. The project, led by researchers at George Washington University, came to life with help from the DC Food Policy Council. This volunteer coalition of leaders, led by a small staff housed in D.C.’s Office of Planning, was established a decade ago to focus on creating a more equitable and sustainable local food system.

Over the years, the Food Policy Council has worked on a range of issues, like leading the effort to get low-income students who rely on school lunches extra food over the summer, shaping legislation that made it easier to start farmers markets in neighborhoods that lack fresh produce, and helping coordinate emergency food distribution at the beginning of the pandemic. This year, however, may be the council’s last as Mayor Muriel Bowser’s proposed budget would eliminate it.

“A budget is a moral document,” said Francis. “What you budget in the government sets a priority, not only for policy decisions, but also it tells the public, ‘This is what we care about.’”

As the city grapples with the economic impacts of federal workforce layoffs and slowed revenue, the Food Policy Council is far from the only part of the government facing cuts. Following her report of a $1 billion dollar budget gap, Bowser’s proposed cuts include nearly eliminating a fund that helps boost the pay of child care workers, reducing funds for universal paid leave by $95 million dollars, and freezing pay increases for D.C. government workers.

However, after the D.C. Chief Financial Officer freed up $400 million in additional funds, the mayor requested last week that Chairman Phil Mendelson put money towards some of these cuts, including future collective bargaining agreements, childcare family subsidy programs, universal paid leave, and the Housing Trust Production Fund. But the Food Policy Council wasn’t on that list of priorities.

When asked about this decision, the Bowser administration said that “FY27 is a challenging budget year.”

However, advocates say this work is vital in a city where the ease of getting healthy food depends on where you live. While Ward 3 is home to 17 full-service grocery stores, according to a 2025 report from DC Hunger Solutions, Ward 7 has just 3 (and in Ward 8, it’s only 4). Capital Area Food Bank found that in 2025, 40% of Washingtonians experienced food insecurity, an increase from 38% the previous year. The problem may continue to worsen due to federal workforce layoffs and major changes to public benefits like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), experts say.

“Why would you get rid of something that's needed for an essential service for the city?” said Patricia Stamper, an Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in Ward 7, about the Food Policy Council. “Everybody has to eat everyday.”

Stamper works on the same project as Francis, which for her is motivated by the long commutes she and her Ward 7 neighbors often make to put food on the table.

“I shouldn't have to go an hour and 30 minutes out of my way on public transportation, just to get quality food to feed my two children,” she said.

But the Bowser administration said these challenging economic times require tough decisions.

“We delivered a balanced budget that met residents’ most pressing needs, focusing on education, public safety, core services like trash and roads, protecting healthcare for residents, and growing the District’s economy,” said a spokesperson from the Office of the City Administrator (OCA).

There also doesn’t seem to be an appetite from the Office of Planning (OP) to keep the Food Policy Council and its staff in their department. During a May budget hearing, OP Director Anita Cozart said the direction of the Food Policy Council shifted after the pandemic, when they started focusing on expanding federal food assistance and supporting values-based procurement — which is outside of OP’s work on land use regulation.

“Those are important to District residents,” said Cozart. “They are also substantially the function of other agencies, and not core to our functions at OP,” adding that it was difficult for OP to justify the operational support.

Still, the elimination concerned councilmembers, and Chairman Phil Mendelson questioned Cozart why the office wasn’t just moved to a different agency.

Councilmember Christina Henderson, who chairs the Committee on Health, was particularly surprised by the cut, given recent efforts to increase the office’s work. In March, the D.C. Council held a hearing on legislation that would expand the authority of the Food Policy Council to ensure that all government agencies who buy food are meeting certain nutritional, economic, and environmental standards.

“We thought that this would be really good work,” said Henderson, who co-sponsored the legislation, in an interview with The 51st on May 7. “And then to have the proposal to cut the office … it was definitely very surprising.”

To the average person, the work of the Food Policy Council might seem a little wonky, but Henderson said it’s had real consequences.

That includes helping bring SUN Bucks to D.C., a federal program that provides $120 for qualifying students to get food during the summer months, when they can’t rely on school lunches for a nutritious meal. This resulted in the District receiving over $7 million federal dollars for 58,000 kids in 2024. The council was also central to the Farmers Market Support Act, which helps bring farmers markets to low-access food areas through grants and discounted permitting fees.

“If you use a farmers market, regardless of where you are in D.C., then you also care about the DC Food Policy Council,” said Francis.

At multiple budget hearing meetings in April and May, a wide range of groups urged the D.C. Council to restore the Food Policy Council’s funding.

Local farming network 4PFoods called the Food Policy Council “instrumental” in passing the Healthy Students Amendment Act, which incentivized schools to ensure more kids from high-need schools were eating breakfast. Health equity nonprofit DC Greens wrote that the Food Policy Council’s leadership in health equity, food access, and interagency coordination helped their Produce Rx program succeed, which supplies Medicaid enrollees with monthly funds to buy fresh produce.

One resident testified that her small food business wouldn’t exist without the Food Policy Council.

“They were kind of instrumental in answering our questions and encouraging us from the get-go,” said Nina Hamedani, a Ward 4 resident and owner of baklava pop-up, The Persian Table.

Hamedani also told The 51st that the Food Policy Council’s monthly meetings are where she received information on important policy updates, like a recent law change that expanded the types of markets that food producers like Hamedani can sell to. She added that another big boost to starting her business was when Caroline Howe, the director of the Food Policy Council, helped get her connected to a food business mentor.

But last month, Howe was let go from her position, a move that Councilmember Henderson suspects was related to Howe’s advocacy to restore the Food Policy Council’s funding.

“You can't say it was because of the work product, because they were doing what they were supposed to do, they were competent in terms of the expertise, they had brought together agencies to move the ball forward,” Henderson told The 51st.

When asked about Howe’s removal, the OCA spokesperson said the city does not comment on personnel matters.

They added that food policy “remains important to the District and will continue across multiple agencies,” citing two ongoing initiatives: Nourish DC, a public-private partnership that has distributed over $1.5 million dollars in grants to help fund local-owned food businesses, and the Office of Urban Agriculture, which has multiple programs to help residents get funding for their urban farms.

But years of advocacy by the Food Policy Council was the origin story of Nourish DC, wrote Alison Powers, the director of economic opportunities at the Nourish DC Collaborative, in her testimony to a Committee of the Whole’s budget hearing. “Nourish DC has relied on the FPC’s deep expertise in local food systems,” Powers added in her testimony. “It was devastating to hear the FPC would be cut.”

Advocates are also worried about cutting the Food Policy Council right as new changes to SNAP take place. Starting this month, some SNAP recipients in D.C. are now required to prove that they’re working or volunteering at least 80 hours a month (such work requirements have historically been used to reduce the amount of people on public assistance programs). The Food Policy Council had been working with D.C.’s Department of Human Services to reach out to job training providers, in order to help SNAP recipients meet the new requirements and keep their benefits.

At a May council budget hearing on the Office of Planning (OP), Councilmember Henderson asked OP Director Cozart if she knew which agency would take on the work of communicating SNAP eligibility requirements and organizing on-the-ground food distribution efforts, if the Food Policy Council were to be dissolved. “At the moment, I do not,” said Cozart, but added that there are staff who can take on that work in the interim.

In her newsletter, Henderson wrote that Bower’s budget is cutting “critical health programs, including for behavioral health services, maternal and child health, healthy food access, and more.

Under her leadership, the Committee on Health is advocating to restore funding for the Food Policy Council and to move it under DC Health, which Henderson said is mission-aligned because “food policy is essential to public health.”

The next steps are up to the D.C. Council, which will take its first vote on the budget on June 9.

Ultimately, advocates like Francis say that the Food Policy Council is doing work the city needs more of, not less. “This is actually about food access across the District for everyone,” she said. “We all honestly have something to lose here, and it's important that people know that.”