D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and the Department of Housing and Community Development on Thursday announced 11 more projects that will receive funding from the Housing Production Trust Fund, the city’s primary source of financing for affordable housing.

This announcement follows Bowser’s pledge last year to invest almost a half-billion dollars to fund affordable housing in D.C. Ten projects were already selected in February, to the tune of more than $135.5 million. The new round of projects announced Thursday will bring the total investment this year to $300 million of the $445 million Bowser requested and the D.C. Council set aside in the upcoming year’s budget.

The newly announced projects include:

• Harvard Court Apartments (Ward 1) – 109 new affordable housing units, including 22 deeply affordable units.
• 145 Kennedy Street (Ward 4) – 35 new affordable housing units, including 8 units of deeply affordable housing.
• McMillan Senior Apartments (Ward 5) – 85 new affordable housing units, including 24 units of deeply affordable housing.
• 1109 Congress Street (Ward 6) – 69 new deeply affordable housing units.
• Parcel B Buzzard’s Point Senior (Ward 6) – 110 new affordable housing units with a majority targeting the District’s lowest income households.  
• Deanwood Station (Ward 7) – 15 affordable homeownership opportunities as a part of the Mayor’s Black Homeownership Strike Force.
• 950 Eastern Avenue NE (Ward 7) – 56 new affordable housing units, including 13 units of deeply affordable housing. 
• Benning Road Metro Affordable (Ward 7) – 109 new affordable housing units, including 22 units of deeply affordable housing
• Ridgecrest Phase 2 (Ward 8) – 64 new units of affordable housing while preserving another 64 units of existing affordable housing.
• Belmont Phase 2 (Ward 8) – 124 new units of affordable housing while preserving another 100 units of existing affordable housing. 
• Congress Heights Metro Residential (Ward 8) – 179  new affordable housing units, including 10 units of deeply affordable housing 

The projects will include the construction of new housing units, as well as work to preserve existing affordable homes.

These upcoming projects are likely to be watched carefully as they’re developed. Last year, an audit revealed that DHCD did not ensure that 50% of the annual HPTF spending went towards creating and preserving homes for extremely low-income residents, as is mandated by law. Extremely low-income housing refers to homes affordable to a four-person household earning no more than 30% of the region’s median family income, or $42,700 per year for a family of four according to DHCD. 

A new provision of the budget set to take effect in October will require DHCD to better account for how it is spending money from the trust fund to ensure that it is meeting the legal requirements for extremely low-income residents.

For these most recent selections, the city’s announcement says more than 80% of the homes produced will be available to households making less than 50% of the median family income, or $71,750 for a family of four. 

“We know the continued production of housing at all levels will help address rising housing costs faced across the country,” said Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development John Falcicchio in a press release.

Each project will have a different timeline before it can begin construction; some may be able to close within six to eight months, while others may take longer, DHCD said via email. Construction usually takes 18-24 months.

Bowser has set a goal for an additional 12,000 units of affordable housing by 2025. Between January 2019 and July 2022, D.C. produced 4,286 affordable units. Since she took office in 2015, more than $1 billion has been invested and spent from the Housing Production Trust Fund to finance the construction of affordable housing.