“There’s more demand for this program than there is money in the pot, and we could double it, and that would still be the case,” Robert White says.

The program has surged in demand amid a troubling cocktail of economic conditions for renters.

The Department of Human Services announced the application deadline for D.C.’s Emergency Rental Assistance Program is tomorrow, March 10.

Evictions in the D.C. region are at their highest level since the pandemic began, thanks to rising rents and the expiration of COVID protections.

Hundreds of evictions are scheduled in D.C., and D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson says Mayor Muriel Bowser hasn’t done enough to stop them.