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I’m running for DC mayor to build more housing and lower costs

ggwash.org · last updated June 12, 2026 – 6:23 PM

<div> <figure> <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ep_jhu/52705394226/in/photolist-2oioVty-2… src="https://ggwash.org/images/made/images/posts/_resized/Screenshot_2026-03…; alt=""></a> <figcaption>A DC morning. <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/ep_jhu/52705394226/in/photolist-2oioVty-2…; by ep_jhu used with permission.</figcaption> </figure> Editorial note: DC’s Fair Elections regulations prohibit organizational monetary or in-kind contributions to publicly financed candidates. In keeping with these regulatory requirements, all publicly financed political candidates for District of Columbia public office can submit a pitch to Greater Greater Washington for consideration, and Greater Greater Washington subjects all such pitches to the organization’s standard <a href="https://ggwash.org/about/writeforus">editorial process</a>. GGWash <a href="https://ggwash.org/view/102464/ggwash-endorses-janeese-lewis-george-for…; Janeese Lewis George for DC mayor. For candidate questionnaires and endorsements across all races, visit our <a href="https://ggwash.org/elections/2026">2026 Elections Hub.</a> In 2010, the summer before I started at Howard University School of Law, I got a call from my mom. She told me that our landlord raised the rent again. Until that moment, I thought we owned our home. I didn’t know that we were renters. Even with a good union job as a postal worker, my mom just couldn’t afford the constant rent hikes. So we packed up our home of two decades on Kennedy Street NW and said goodbye to our neighbors, my teacher who lived across the street, and the bus driver who lived three doors down. I started law school that fall living in my sister’s attic. To help with rent, I took on part-time jobs, waiting tables at a restaurant in Silver Spring and working retail at Nordstrom Rack. I used to be embarrassed about what happened to my family. But I’ve come to understand that our housing instability was representative of a deeply flawed vision for public policy, and for how the District should grow. As mayor, I’ll make sure our next era of growth is more productive, and more fair, than our last. <h2>My vision to build more homes</h2> Only recently, many Democrats saw it as progressive to deny that there is a housing shortage at all, sometimes going so far as to block new construction in the name of affordability. But the research is clear: The housing supply crisis is <a href="https://nlihc.org/resource/latest-state-nations-housing-report-finds-re… housing</a> <a href="https://www.epi.org/blog/the-growing-housing-supply-shortage-has-create… for all of us</a>. When I was first elected to the DC Council, I myself was skeptical of this. And I wasn’t certain about the role private development should play in making housing more affordable. I saw cranes everywhere, but I knew so many people struggling to afford their rent. Since then, after reading the research myself and learning of the successes of other cities that’ve built more homes, I’ve embraced the fact that cities that build temper costs for renters and homeowners. Increasing supply, paired with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkIwKKCYUnE">policies</a><…; to protect residents, really is critical to stopping further displacement and making housing more affordable for all. I have a track record to back my words: As Ward 4 Councilmember, I’ve spoken out in favor of building more, advocating for the <a href="https://janeeseward4.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/CM-Lewis-George-Let… Station</a> redevelopment and the <a href="https://www.petworthnews.org/blog/cm-lewis-george-affordable-housing"><… Loft</a> project. But I recognize there’s still a lot more work to be done citywide. In 2019, half—48.9%—of the region’s new multi-family home projects were in DC. By 2024, according to the Census Building Permit Survey, that number had dropped to 18%. I’m committed to a goal of building 72,000 new homes in five years, double the current administration’s housing production target and the target identified by my principal opponent, Kenyan McDuffie. As mayor, I’ll do the following to increase the District’s housing supply and build 72,000 homes in five years: Legalize high-density, mixed-use buildings near Metrorail and bus stops and on publicly-owned land to encourage transit-oriented development and maximize the use of our public assets. Make modest starter homes possible, and use residential lots to their greatest potential, by legalizing small apartment homes up to six units District-wide and easing setback and side-yard requirements to make sure that housing isn’t just legal on paper, but actually gets built. End parking requirements citywide, and encourage minimal parking be built in developments near Metro stations. Overhaul our building code to cut red tape and make buildings more efficient and sustainable. Provide a stable regulatory environment that safeguards residents and offers predictability to and collaboration with potential investors Simplify permitting, streamline inspections, and reexamine regulatory burdens by: If elected, I’ll also have the opportunity to change the ongoing rewrite of the Comprehensive Plan to allow for many more homes along transit corridors and on the interior streets of our exclusionary neighborhoods. This will allow housing that meets community needs in every part of the District, something the outgoing mayor has failed to do. Other policies, such as building-code reforms and permit streamlining, will require new policies that I will direct my administration to start to tackle on day one. The District cannot control macroeconomic factors, like interest rates and materials costs, that make it more expensive to build. But the mayor is DC’s chief planner and, in that role, I won’t let local land use regulations interfere with housing production. Another priority of mine is to use our public dollars to produce the best outcomes possible. One way to do that is by establishing a <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/392173/public-social-housing-success-montgom… housing</a> program to enable District-owned, mixed-income housing with stable rents, ensuring that government investments prioritize people over profit. And I’d rely on funding mechanisms that already exist, like housing production trust fund dollars or federal dollars, to make it happen. My platform will protect residents and efficiently, effectively, and ethically subsidize homes for people for whom the private market cannot or will not build. Our housing supply challenges, however, are bigger than what we can solve via subsidy alone. I’m pursuing an all-of-the-above strategy that reflects my values of supporting our most vulnerable residents; welcoming new ones; and creating diverse, inclusive neighborhoods. My approach looks toward the future, not the past. <h2>Building more for all of us </h2> Cities like <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=Fc0r_gknejo&t=189">Austin<…; and <a href="https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/2025/unpacking-supply-and-demand…; have seen costs to own or rent a home come down as new housing has been built. Leaders from across the Democratic political spectrum in San Francisco, New York, and Seattle are working hard to add housing as a way to bring down costs. I will, too. The District has led the nation on innovative social infrastructure, such as universal pre-K and paid family leave, which both help current residents and are an economic incentive for new residents to move here. Those investments are possible because the District has grown: the $70 million that we spend on the Pay Equity Fund wouldn’t be available without our tax base having grown from 500,000 to more than 700,000 residents since 2000. Imagine the social safety net we could generate if there were 800,000 or one million Washingtonians living and working here. The District can grow while also protecting the people who already live here, some for generations—like my family. This is why I believe legalizing a lot more homes is a prerequisite to an affordable future for DC. And because I believe in the importance of planning for growth, I was deeply <a href="https://ggwash.org/view/102807/a-devastatingly-unambitious-draft">disap…; with the draft Future Land Use Map recently released by the Office of Planning. The current administration is proposing minimal changes to the District’s land use, with extremely limited increases in density in a mere handful of neighborhoods. At best, the housing this adminsitation plans to add will merely keep pace with inflation. A plan to maintain the status quo is not good enough. To grow our economy and make DC more affordable, we need leaders who are willing to challenge the status quo and demand more. <h2>Building a city where successes are shared</h2> I do want to use this opportunity to talk about why there is sometimes legitimate pushback to building more. My predecessors undertook innovative planning and economic development efforts, like the transformation of NoMa and the Anacostia waterfront, but they did not legalize enough housing and enough types of housing in our wealthiest neighborhoods to keep pace with demand. <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/sports/nationals-park-brin… admit it themselves</a>. The perception that new construction means gentrification and displacement understandably comes from the fact that most of the District’s growth has been in the form of very visible, large buildings clustered in neighborhoods with fewer politically-connected wealthy residents who oppose new construction. We have failed to build the kind of small and mid-sized infill housing that I grew up in, which should be our greatest source of attainable, family-sized housing. Above all, it’s clear to me how exclusionary zoning preserves segregation and exacerbates displacement. The rent hikes that my family experienced in 2010 might not have been so drastic if single-family zoning in the District’s most affluent neighborhoods hadn’t long-prevented more homes from being built in them. I’ll make sure that every neighborhood plays its part in welcoming those who come here and those who are from here. Our Black population has dropped precipitously, in number and percentage, over the past several decades. The year my family was priced out of Kennedy Street was the year that DC’s reputation as Chocolate City <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/black-dc-residents-plummet-barely-… put in doubt</a>. The District is still a thriving center of Black culture, but it is excruciating to know that many of the people who built that legacy can no longer afford to be our neighbors. I pledge to build a city where Washingtonians who have been pushed out to the suburbs can choose to return to the District. I dream of a city where anyone looking for a place to live safely and proudly as a Black person—Howard students, teachers, firefighters, nurses, small business owners, entrepreneurs—can, like so many before us, call DC home. And I won’t let that come at the expense of our Latino, white, or Asian neighbors. Right now, our housing shortage means that the growth of one community comes at the expense of another, but I know a city where our successes are shared and we no longer have to compete for a scarce supply of homes is possible. </div>

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I’m running for DC mayor to build more housing and lower costs

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