D.C. unlocked 371 new housing vouchers on Thursday, Oct. 1, ending a five-month freeze that left caseworkers and homeless residents without access to two key programs since April.

The new fiscal year budget funds 200 Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) vouchers for individuals and 95 for families through the Local Rent Supplement Program (LRSP), Washington City Paper first reported. The remaining vouchers in the 371 total were not broken out by category in available records. Separately, 15 vouchers outside the 371 count are set aside: five for health and safety cases such as domestic abuse and 10 for youth transfers.

The 2026 Point-in-Time Count, conducted Feb. 4, found 5,363 people experiencing homelessness in D.C., a 4.4% increase from 2025. Family homelessness rose 15.8% compared with 2025.

The Department of Human Services (DHS) has posted a distribution schedule planning to release 15 to 20 individual PSH vouchers per month, with no vouchers allocated in December 2026 or September 2027. That pacing marks a deliberate shift from the previous fiscal year, when DHS front-loaded 195 individual vouchers between October and December 2025, then distributed just 13 between July and September 2026. The early spending drained the supply and triggered the five-month drought.

Andy Wassenich, director of policy for Miriam's Kitchen, warned about the consequences in April, when the freeze began. "There are no vouchers, there are no interventions, so people who are, you know, new to homelessness or newly becoming homeless … they're going to end up being homeless for a while," Wassenich told Washington City Paper at the time.

Outreach workers from Miriam's Kitchen and Pathways to Housing DC have also called for more caseworkers. In 2022, more than half of D.C.'s 2,400 funded vouchers went unmatched by the end of that fiscal year because there were not enough caseworkers to manage the paperwork, according to Washington City Paper.

Those unused vouchers rolled into 2023.

The voucher replenishment was made possible in part by the D.C. Council's decision to pull $150 million from the city's Fiscal Stabilization Reserve during budget negotiations. That money increased funding to DHS and the DC Housing Authority (DCHA), supporting 469 already-existing vouchers and the Rapid Rehousing program, according to a Council statement. The budget requires that any excess revenues beyond the chief financial officer's estimates go first toward replenishing the reserve.

Congress cut $1.1 billion from D.C.'s fiscal year 2027 budget, making the reserve draw a necessity, Washington City Paper reported.

DHS Director A.D. Rachel Pierre said in a May 12 statement that the District achieved more than 2,220 exits to permanent housing over the past year, which the agency called its highest number of lease-ups ever. But with 5,363 residents counted as homeless in February and 371 new vouchers now available, the math leaves thousands waiting.

DHS plans to distribute the next batch of individual PSH vouchers in November.