Interagency Council on Homelessness
Department of Housing and Community Development
One missed rent payment can mean the difference between stable housing and homelessness. In 2018, the DC Department of Human Services (DHS) began the DC Flexible Rent Subsidy (DC Flex) program. DC Flex gives participants a flexible source of funds to help cover housing costs. After an initial pilot with families, we are testing how the program works for single adults with no children. Results could inform whether to offer DC Flex to more people.
Photo Credit: The Lab @ DC
Why is this issue important in DC?
Despite recent efforts to address homelessness in DC, the number of unhoused single adults has remained largely unchanged.1 Since housing costs in the District are more than twice the national average2, many low-income single adults struggle to make ends meet.
DC has many tools to address housing affordability, and we try to use our resources to provide the right amount and type of assistance for each person. Results from families using DC Flex shows the subsidy is effective at improving recipients’ housing stability.3
What are we doing?
In 2023, DHS established the DC Flex for Singles pilot program. DC Flex for Singles directly gives working individuals $7,200 to spend on rent each year for up to four years through a dedicated bank account. Participants choose how much of these funds to spend each month, as their income and expenses fluctuate.4 This flexibility and transfer to tenants, rather than to landlords, is unique among housing programs. DC Flex is also unique because it provides a “shallow” subsidy. Shallow subsidies have a lower cost than other housing programs, so they can help make housing more affordable for more people.
DC Flex for Singles had spots for only a small number of participants. We invited eligible individuals to apply and used lotteries to select participants. To test its impact, we will measure housing stability for people who receive the funds and people who don’t. The small size of this pilot will limit how we can interpret results. At minimum, we want to better understand whether it is realistic to expand the program to serve more people.
What have we learned?
Lots of residents are interested in the program. About one-third of everyone eligible in 2023 applied. Moreover, 97% of applicants said they ran short on money in the past year, which signals a need for financial help.
What comes next?
We plan to release results on the program’s first year in late 2025. This report will focus on the program’s impact on homelessness and use of other housing programs. After that, we will periodically release updated reports.
“We think that [DC Flex] provides a really important subsidy at a much lower cost than a voucher that can keep people from experiencing housing emergencies, and that is what we’ve observed.”
What happened behind the scenes?
This is one of The Lab’s first projects focused entirely on housing for single adults. We have toured several service centers and are learning how the District’s support systems for individuals differ from those for families. For more information about available services, see DHS’s website.
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