Drew Hubbard.
Drew Hubbard
Interim Director at D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development
Stepping in to helm the D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) — the agency responsible for building or preserving affordable housing in Washington, D.C. — can be daunting. Rents and home costs around D.C. continue to skyrocket, while the agency has been criticized for mismanaging funds. But that’s the task at hand for Drew Hubbard.
Hubbard, who has more than a decade of experience in D.C. government, was appointed interim director of DHCD in October 2021 by Mayor Muriel Bowser, replacing retired director Polly Donaldson.
The agency has a budget of $150.2 million in fiscal year 2022 and oversees the Housing Production Trust Fund (HPTF), considered the city’s most important affordable housing funding source.
For fiscal years 2021 and 2022, Bowser allocated $400 million to HPTF, bringing her total investment in the program to $1 billion since 2015. In February DHCD selected 10 projects to produce or preserve affordable housing in the city — the largest being Edgewood Commons V, which will create 151 new affordable housing units.
Since Hubbard took charge of DHCD, the agency has cut the ribbon on 26 affordable housing apartments in Hillcrest and worked with Bowser and other agencies on the $10 million Black Homeownership Strike Force to increase and support homeownership for Black residents in the District.
While the Washington City Paper reported Bowser’s funding for HPTF is more per capita than any other city in the country, and it has more than 12,000 affordable units, DHCD’s handling of the program has been criticized recently.
Right before Hubbard became interim director, D.C.’s Office of the Inspector General released a scathing audit that found that DHCD, under Donaldson, did not satisfy the legal mandate of steering at least half of HPTF funds to the city’s poorest residents, DCist reported.
In fiscal year 2021, DHCD allocated only 27 percent of HPTF money to extremely low-income housing, and in four years misspent nearly $82 million from the fund, according to DCist.
