WASHINGTON (7News) — More than a dozen landlords — some from leasing companies with thousands of rental units and another a retiree with nine apartments for rent in the Northeast D.C. — gathered on the steps of the Wilson building on Tuesday afternoon, all in a show of support for what they hope will be meaningful reform to the District’s rental housing laws.
On Wednesday, the D.C. Council votes for the final time on the RENTAL Act. If passed in its current form, D.C. landlords agree, it will do little to help the city emerge from what they call an “eviction crisis.”
“D.C. landlords have lost $1 billion in rent because of the negligence of the D.C. Council,” said Dean Hunter, CEO of the Small Multifamily Owners Association.
The original version of the RENTAL Act, introduced in February by D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, calls for mandatory hearing deadlines to shorten the process of evicting tenants who don’t pay rent or commit other lease violations.
The Bowser-backed version of the RENTAL Act also called for mandatory protective orders that would require tenants who are delinquent to pay into a court registry while their eviction cases are pending. Both of those measures were stripped out of the original version of the RENTAL Act that Bowser introduced.
“If those two provisions are not in the RENTAL Act, the RENTAL Act will do nothing to alleviate the eviction crisis,” Hunter said.
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Eviction moratoriums during the COVID pandemic were lifted in September 2021, but an epidemic of unpaid rent continues to plague housing providers, large and small, within the District.
Mike Huke, Chairman of CIH Properties, Inc., owns more than 2,000 rental units, predominantly in Wards seven and eight.
“We have one flagship very large property with 58 new residents that came in during 2025, and 33 percent of them are delinquent on their rents,” Huke told 7News on Tuesday.
“In 2019, prior to COVID and the district’s restrictions on collections, we had rents owed, total, of under $700,000, and that total now is over $11 million,” Huke added.
Francine Watson, 82, owns nine units in the Northeast.
“Out of the nine, I have two tenants that are paying me,” Watson said.
Dean Hunter, a longtime advocate for smaller landlords, says eviction hearings when renters within the district are delinquent can take 16 to 18 months.
“In our neighboring jurisdictions, when you file an initial complaint, you go to court within three weeks, four weeks,” Hunter said. “In the District of Columbia, you go to court in six to eight months.”
“When tenants come in, they know that they can probably live for nearly two years without paying rent before any serious action on an eviction,” Huke added.
Huke said the D.C. Council could strike a blow for struggling housing providers by returning D.C. rental laws to pre-COVID rental guidelines.
The final vote on the RENTAL is scheduled for Wednesday, the same day the D.C. Council is expected to vote for the final time on the Washington Commanders’ new stadium deal.
While that latter vote is expected to get more media coverage, D.C. landlords like Francine Watson, who bought her rental properties as part of her retirement savings plan, hope the D.C. Council will give consideration to smaller landlords like her, who are facing foreclosure.
Watson, who uses a wheelchair to stay mobile, says she is owed more than $200,000 in unpaid rent, but she remains determined to hold her delinquent tenants accountable.
“I think when they look at me as being handicapped and a senior citizen, they think they can take advantage of me,” said Watson. “But they don’t realize who they’re fighting with. Cause I still got a lot of fight left in me.”