Courtney Battle is executive director of Housing&.

Washington is weathering a housing crisis. The capital city has one of the highest mountains of unpaid rent in the country: $147 million is predicted to go unpaid in 2025 alone, which would represent a 1,236 percent increase since 2020. And that amount continues to climb. Combined with lingering financial deficits exacerbated by pandemic-era moratoriums on eviction, the District fears that much of its affordable housing — more than 20,000 units of which are already at risk of foreclosure — might soon disappear.