An ‘unforgiving’ market has gotten worse for D.C.-area renters. What happens next will shape the future.

Even before Covid, Tazra Mitchell lamented that the city’s rental market was “really unforgiving.” By the D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute executive’s estimates, about 40% of D.C.’s low-income households devoted more than a third of their monthly income to paying rent — the federal standard for determining if someone is “cost burdened” by housing prices. In Northern Virginia, more than 67% of households making less than $50,000 annually faced the same challenge in 2019, per the Community Foundation for Northern Virginia.