The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Audit: D.C. agency used funding to house poor residents for other needs

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March 20, 2018 at 8:00 a.m. EDT
D.C. resident Cecelia Thompson, center, raises her hand with the crowd when they are asked who wants and needs affordable housing at the More For Housing Now rally at the Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington in March 2017. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

The D.C. government has used a $1 billion fund established to create affordable housing and stave off gentrification to repay the federal government millions of dollars for mismanaged grants, the D.C. Auditor said in a new report Tuesday.

Since 2001, the Housing Production Trust Fund, as the program is known, has doled out nearly $750 million in grants and loans to developers to build or preserve thousands of units of affordable housing.