“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.

More than 82,000 residents – 12% of the city’s population – do not have stable housing, the overwhelming majority of those Black and Hispanic households, a new report found.

The Landlord-Tenant Legal Assistance Network (LTLAN) provides free representation to low-income DC residents facing eviction. In their first two years they’ve received over 3,000 calls.

The funding comes after the city’s STAY DC rental assistance program ran out of funding in 2021, and renters face losing eviction protections in 2022.

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.