DC’s primary “affordable” housing program, Inclusionary Zoning (IZ) has failed the city and our vulnerable residents yet serves as the rationale and guise for pro-development advocates and politicos to privatize public land and build more luxury housing at our expense.

Below, please read the startling facts of how bad IZ has failed to serve DC’s low income families and residents making the living wage or less.

Per this report (click here), the IZ units that have been built to date in DC are mainly at 80% AMI and are likely a studio/one bedroom.

That means the vast numbers of units being built are for households of ONE.  Thus, someone who makes about $80k/yr can put themselves on the IZ lottery list and qualify for an “affordable” IZ unit.

Living wage incomes in DC are approximately $35k/yr or about 30% of the AMI (Area Median Income).

The AMI is a metric that includes DC, Montgomery County, and Fairfax County (these two counties place as top 10 wealthiest counties in the country annually) and the people’s incomes in this area have risen every year for the past decade (this year it’s $142k/yr for a family of four).

Each year so-called “affordable” housing is getting less and less affordable for working people in DC, especially for families & residents with incomes that are stagnant or who make the living wage or less.

Maybe this is why people are forced to live in tented encampments, because in DC “affordable housing” isn’t actually affordable unless you are a single professional and likely white (see the enormous racial wealth inequalities in DC in the chart above and compare that to the income levels of IZ in the chart above that).

THERE ARE SOLUTIONS TO THE TRICKLE DOWN UNAFFORDABLE PRIVATIZATION SCHEMES HAPPENING WITH OUR PUBLIC LAND — SOCIAL HOUSING