DC agency can't confirm fraud in rental aid program targeted for cuts

Testifying to D.C. Council in April about her cuts in housing aid, Mayor Muriel Bowser said she was aware of applicants who could afford to pay rent but instead applied for the District’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP).

So far in 2024, 12,000 people applied for ERAP aid, the Department of Human Services told the News4 I-Team. DHS told the I-Team 3,095 households were granted aid. Yet Bowser’s Fiscal Year 2025 proposes cutting the program by 67% leaving just $20.2 million for ERAP. This year, there is more than $60 million available, including federal funds. DHS told the I-Team those federal funds are no longer available and “the District is not able to maintain ERAP funding at pre-pandemic levels.”  The D.C. Council is looking for ways to restore some of the cuts.

As she rolled out her proposed cuts, Bowser alleged misuse by some applicants.

"I believe there are people using ERAP who can pay their rent," Bowser told D.C. Councilmember Robert White.

Days after the mayor’s Council testimony, D.C. DHS Director Laura Zeilinger went further, telling the I-Team, “There is fraud in the program.”

But when the I-Team looked for proof of the alleged fraud, the city did not provide any.

DHS told the I-Team, the agency does not have dedicated fraud investigators for ERAP,  only an office that works to root out fraud across its numerous programs. Asked if the D.C. agency identified any cases of ERAP fraud, the question went unanswered for more than a week. The agency eventually told the I-Team it referred 147 cases of suspected fraud to internal investigators over two years and payment was withheld, but it did not forward a single case to D.C.’s Office of the Inspector General for criminal investigation. Using DHS’s numbers, that means it suspected fraud in less than 1% of ERAP applications and didn’t say they definitely found fraud in any of them.

“Just saying there's fraud doesn't mean that there is fraud,” Taxpayers Protection Alliance President David Williams told the I-Team. “They have a responsibility to explain to taxpayers, to explain to every citizen of the city where that fraud is, how much it is and who's committing that fraud." 

If not, Williams worries the cuts will hurt D.C.'s most vulnerable.

"The sins of the past should not affect people that need this program in the future," he said. 

In a written statement, Zeilinger told the I-Team, “Through information obtained informally from our housing providers, we also recognize that there are residents who we know are working and have income because they must demonstrate income to tax credit properties and are misusing ERAP. This is impacting the ability of our housing providers to maintain and sustain their properties.”

It is an issue Zach Huke can identify with. He’s likely the last guy expected to criticize a program that pays back rent.  He is a landlord, and at times, his tenants pay back rent through the program. Huke's company, CIH Properties, owns and manages thousands of D.C. apartments — most of them in Southwest D.C.'s Bellevue neighborhood.

To Huke, ERAP's problems are bigger than a budget fight.

“There's, a false promise of ERAP," Huke said.

He thinks D.C. leaders running ERAP have not addressed new challenges with the program and is at times misunderstood by D.C. tenants.

“We have residents that have built up large balances, almost hoping or expecting for ERAP to help them out," he said.

To Huke, ERAP's false promise is that few of the thousands who apply will get the aid they need, and when they do, the limited bailout is not enough.

Huke said 20% of the apartments in his largest building are behind a month's rent or more — many far more.

“The top 50 (tenants) owe over $800,000, and our total amount due by current residents is almost $1 million," he said.

Owed that much money, Huke said he has no choice but to file eviction cases in what he calls another broken system — a backlogged landlord and tenant court.

CIH's attorneys told the I-Team the company had 26 evictions cases last month. No matter how far behind they are or how much they owe, D.C. law pauses an eviction case when a renter applies for ERAP aid.

In April, more than half of Huke's cases, 15, were delayed for months for that reason according to their attorneys.

"There are emergencies. Families need government help. And the system was robust and functional before COVID. Right now, this system is untenable … The current state of the business is about as hard as it has ever been in the 50 years,” said Huke.

If something does not change to reset the balance between revenue (rent) and expenses, “The (affordable) housing stock, the housing ecosystem in Washington, D.C., is really under threat,” Huke said.

For longtime D.C. residents like Johnett Mason, continuing ERAP could mean the difference between staying in her home and being evicted. She knows how all-consuming it is to be months behind on her rent.

“All the time, thinking like, Oh, I don't know how many months I'm going go with not being able to pay all of my rent," Mason told the I-Team on the front walk of her Marshall Heights home.

She’s lived there for six years, but as she emerged from the pandemic, she said she was falling behind, saying her work as a home health aide was not recovering fast enough to pay all her bills. She had not paid rent in seven months.

“I'm talking to my landlord. I know I'm behind ... So, she say, 'You go apply and talk to someone at ERAP.' I say, 'ERAP? I never heard of ERAP,'" said Mason.

Mason said ERAP paid all seven months of her back rent last year.

“It put me back on track,” she said.

Asked about potential cuts, Mason encouraged Bowser to restore them.

“I've been in my home for six years, so I only needed ERAP one time,” she said. “I think that people are not really going to just abuse the system. They are going to use it when they need to."

One reform Bowser is already backing would force applicants to prove their need for ERAP aid. Since the pandemic, ERAP applicants have been able to simply sign a document that claims they need it without any documentation.

A DHS spokesperson added late on Thursday, the agency “is working on legislation that would improve the targeting of assistance provided through ERAP. We are aware of the complex dynamics of the court system. We work closely with our ERAP providers to monitor court cases and to ensure those who are nearing eviction and who have ERAP applications in the queue receive the funds they are eligible for, and that the amount of ERAP assistance is known, when possible, at the time of a hearing.”

Reported by Ted Oberg, produced by Rick Yarborough, and shot and edited by Steve Jones.