WASHINGTON, D.C. — Councilmember Brianne K. Nadeau, D-Ward 1, issued the following statement following the extremely disorganized ERAP application process today in which residents waited for hours in line outside and phone hotlines failed.
For months there have been clues that today’s re-opening of ERAP would go badly. But no amount of Council oversight could have prepared us for today’s debacle.
Providing dignified service to residents with housing instability should not be so difficult or unachievable. The Department of Human Services should answer to how this very predictable outcome was not foreseen and how they will make sure this doesn’t happen again.
How did we get here?
There isn’t enough funding to meet the demand for rental assistance. That’s been true every year I’ve been on the Council except for the years we had federal pandemic funding. Last year the portal opened and closed within hours because the number of applications had already exhausted the budget for the full year.
The plan this year was to go back to an appointment-based system so that residents seeking assistance could potentially be counseled into other supports if they were eligible for programs other than ERAP. Sounds good, right? But here’s the thing: in shifting back to an appointment-based system, now with more demand than ever, DHS abandoned the online portal completely, opting instead for phone and in-person scheduling of appointments only. Instead of applicants entering all their info online directly, they now had to provide it to a person in the office or by phone. Spelling out their names, providing their address, email, phone number and social security numbers, which was being manually entered by the person receiving it. I had no doubt that demand would exhaust the full pot of money today.
Meanwhile, people should not have been asked to travel to the Virginia Williams homeless services center for walk-in appointments. We have multiple service centers run by DHS’ Economic Security Administration for public benefits, such as including SNAP benefits, Medicaid, etc. Why would DHS funnel every applicant to one location, resulting in people waiting in long lines outside in the cold?
It’s been years since we saw lines wrapped around the corner to access a D.C. program. And when that was happening, we had testimony at every DHS oversight hearing about this. The number of hours people waited, how they got in line at 4 am, how they waited all day and then were turned away. That is one of the key reasons DHS created the app with the portal.
WHY are we back here? WHY are we not using the technology we paid to develop to at least do the initial intake? Community-based organizations could still follow up to schedule appointments after that. Even after the money is exhausted, they could follow up to offer counseling and support through other programs. This is a mess and there is just no excuse for it.
DHS should never have forced residents to stand in line for hours in the cold and should have been prepared for the crush of phone calls. DHS should apologize to DC residents and explain how this very predictable outcome was not foreseen and how they will make sure this doesn’t happen again.
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