Councilmember (and former mayor) Vincent Gray officially filed for re-election on Tuesday, his campaign announced in an email. Gray will face at least three challengers in the race for his Ward 7 seat.

“This is an opportunity for me to continue to do things that I think are important for our city,” he tells DCist. “I’m a lifelong Washingtonian and I’ve worked on behalf of our city for a number of years at this point, and I’ve always loved being able to do things with and for my city.”

Gray has held numerous public offices in the District of Columbia for well over a decade now. He was the Ward 7 councilmember from 2005 to 2007, the chairman of the D.C. Council from 2007 to 2011, and the mayor of D.C. from 2011 to 2015. He lost his 2014 mayoral reelection bid to current Mayor Muriel Bowser amid a years-long federal investigation into his 2010 mayoral campaign for potential campaign finance violations and allegations of running a shadow campaign. Gray was never indicted in that investigation, though other members of his campaign were.

In 2016, Gray ran for his old Ward 7 seat against one-time protege Yvette Alexander, and won. “Ward 7 is home,” he said when he announced his decision on The Kojo Nnamdi Show at the time.

Since then, he has focused his energy as a councilmember on a variety of issues, perhaps most notably increasing the accessibility of health services in Wards 7 and 8 (particularly those sections east of the river, which Gray calls the East End). Gray has championed a deal to bring a new hospital to Ward 8, one which faced a variety of snags and opposition from neighborhood groups, another city hospital, labor groups, and several councilmembers.

The deal for the new hospital is between the executive branch and George Washington University Hospital, but the D.C. Council has to approve it. After months of delay as the two parties have tried to come to an agreement, Gray says the deal for a new hospital should be ready to come before the council in the coming weeks. Gray says he’s proud of  “being able to get the money reassembled for the building of the new hospital.”

He also outlined his focus on bringing more full service grocery stores to Ward 7, where there are currently only two serving the roughly 70,000 people who live there. Another one will soon be coming to the Skyland Town Center, a development of mixed retail and amenities coming to the intersection of Alabama Avenue, Good Hope Road, and Naylor Road SE (one that Gray has championed).

“Since my return to the Council, I have introduced three East End bills focused on attracting more full-service grocery stores, retail amenities, and sit-down restaurants to Wards 7 and 8,” Gray said in a city release about the development earlier this year. “One of my East End bills targets nine sites in Wards 7 and 8, including Skyland, for retail, restaurants, and full-service grocery stores.”

Gray will be running against Ward 7 ANC Commissioner Anthony Lorenzo Green, another Ward 7 ANC Commissioner Veda Rasheed, and a Ward 7 resident named Kelvin Brown.

Green was particularly critical of Gray in his interview with DCist earlier this year—he said the councilmember has failed to protect Ward 7 from gentrification and unwanted development, that he fails to listen to what his constituents want and need, and that he has not done enough to address overpolicing that the community considers to violate their rights.

Gray contested all three criticisms.

“Gentrification is a question of encouraging and enabling people to be able to stay where they are as best as they possibly can,” he says. “Working to improve employment for people, housing for people, I’ve done all of that. And I will continue to do that.”

In terms of policing, Gray says that he has worked to make sure the ward has an adequate number of police officers, and that he has been supported the violence interrupters program. “I’ve been able to strike a balance,” he said.

He also took issue with Green’s claim that he has not been responsive to his constituents.

“I intend to continue to work directly with people to make sure that my agenda reflects the desires and reflects the needs of the people of Ward 7,” he says. “I want to be absolutely sure that I have my finger on the pulse of the sentiments of the people of Ward 7 and that that’s reflected in my work.”