What's At Stake?
From his first swearing-in, Charles Allen has delivered for Ward 6 and the District, championing laws that make the District a better place. Here’s a snapshot of what Charles is working on and what he’s already accomplished on behalf of Ward 6 neighbors.
Recent Examples of Charles’ Leadership
Consider just this current Council Period (since 2023), where Charles has led on or had a major role in the following issues:
- Shepherded through a significant traffic safety bill that gives teeth to DC’s traffic camera enforcement with new tools to crack down on dangerous drivers no matter if they’re from DC, Maryland, or Virginia (or elsewhere).
- Streamlined the law to help small and local businesses operate with less red tape and protect local restaurants from abuse by big tech delivery apps.
- Provided the Alcoholic Beverage and Cannabis Agency enforcement powers for illegally operating, so-called “I-71” pot shops that sell unregulated products, take up space on our corridors, and attract crime and guns.
- Committed our fair share for Metro this year to help WMATA avoid serious service cuts. Charles is determined to secure dedicated, permanent funding for our Metro system.
- Pushed for the Secure DC Act to include regular “shooting reviews” to bring greater coordination among law enforcement after every shooting, as well as coordination among non-law enforcement partners focused on the small group of people most likely to be involved in gun violence.
- Ensured carjacking laws reflect recent court rulings and will hold people who commit harm accountable.
- Created and funded DC’s forthcoming e-bike rebate for DC residents, with a clear eye toward equity that will help more people own an e-bike. The program provides a more generous rebate for lower income riders and covers the cost for modifications for people with disabilities.
Charles’ Record of Accomplishments for Ward 6:
For Ward 6, Charles Allen has delivered:
Securing Funding to Modernize Every Ward 6 DCPS School
- Hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize Ward 6 schools, including Maury, Watkins, Jefferson Middle School, and School Within a School @ Goding, and Eastern High School completed.
- Millions more is secured in the pipeline for Shirley Chisholm (formerly Tyler), Brent, JO Wilson, and Amidon-Bowen on track. Charles will continue to fight to ensure those projects aren’t delayed or changed in the upcoming budget.
Building World Class Public Libraries
- Full renovations of Ward 6’s Southeast Branch Library, with construction underway currently. He worked with neighbors to ensure adequate interim services at both Northeast Library and Arthur Capper Senior Center.
- For the Southwest Library, Charles stepped in when he was first elected to ensure the library wasn’t sold by the city and helped guide a modernization process that was finished with a brand new, beautiful library opening in 2021.
Bringing New Senior Community Space to an Overhauled Rumsey Aquatic Center
- Last year, Charles secured funding for an important renovation at Rumsey Aquatic Center where Charles secured funding to build a new senior center above the pool. Planning and design should begin soon with additional funding needed in the budget.
Transforming our Major Streets and Boulevards
- Stood strong and pushed DDOT to ensure major streetscape projects like Maryland Avenue, Pennsylvania Avenue, and M Street SE/SW delivered modernized, safer, and more monumental streets for neighbors.
- Continuing to fund and advance more major projects including Florida Avenue NE, Penn and Potomac Circle in SE, 8th Street SE, and H Street NE.
Guiding Ward 6 to Lead the Way on Affordable Housing
- Has partnered with or pushed developers to include more affordable homes in their projects, to the point that Ward 6 has built both more new, affordably-priced homes and more new market-rate homes than any other Ward under Charles’ watch.
- Brought together with private developers, community, and Ward 6 ANCs to ensure billions of dollars of investment in thousands of new housing units, offices, and businesses across Ward 6 including Reservation 13, Yards Park and Navy Yard, Southwest Waterfront, and more fit with the existing neighborhood and benefited residents at every income level.
Strengthening Historic Preservation
- Charles has introduced a bill to allow fines to scale to ensure the fine matches the damage when a contractor or developer violates Historic Preservation laws.
Protecting Ward 6 Waterways
- Created an office tasked with managing and protecting access to the District’s waterways, recognizing we want to be intentional about safety and order on our waterways while preserving the right for everyone to enjoy this resource.
For DC, Charles has delivered with a broad record including:
Supporting Vulnerable Families, Seniors, and Affordable Housing
- Won a fight in the FY22 budget to get low-wage families more money through an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, paid monthly. This program reaches more than 50,000, low-wage families every year and, thanks to Charles, now provides monthly cash payments to help pay the bills.
- Funded and stood up a program guaranteeing legal representation in landlord-tenant court to help avoid evictions and reach a better outcome for both parties.
- Secured more than $20 million for repairs to bring public housing apartments back online that had fallen into disrepair.
- Funded staff attorneys on the DC Attorney General’s team working on wage theft and elder abuse, which has led to increased prosecutions against bad actors.
- Created the Safe at Home Program that pays for in-home modifications to help seniors age in their homes and stay in the communities where they have roots.
- Fought to move $22 million from Events DC’s excess funding into badly needed repairs for public housing apartments to bring more affordable homes back online.
Public Safety + Criminal Justice Legislation
- Led the Council to increase the penalty for anyone possessing an extended ammunition clip and bump stock firearm modifications.
- Led the Council to pass ensure our laws reflected the seriousness of the fast-growing use of illegal ghost guns.
- Created the District’s Red Flag Law to empower MPD or family members to get a gun out of the hands of someone who might do harm to themselves or others.
- Passed expanded legislation to ensure survivors of sexual assault have a criminal justice system working for them and supporting their needs.
- Passed legislation closing loopholes for victims of blackmail and sexual exploitation.
- Passed legislation to overhaul the District’s failed crime lab, which lost accreditation in 2021 and has been unable to process key evidence including firearms and drugs since, creating an alarming backlog of open cases today and delayed accountability.
- Expanded MPD’s Cadet Program, which allows DC residents to pursue an education and career with law enforcement. The Cadet Program has grown to 13 residents with 30 becoming recruits in recent years as the pipeline matures.
- Created the Private Security Camera Rebate Program that has helped residents and businesses improve security and MPD close cases. Charles expanded the program to cover more security measures for local businesses as part of Secure DC.
- Strengthened and professionalized the District’s violence interruption efforts, which help understand and break up conflicts between different groups.
Education
- For his first bill, he established Books From Birth with the DC Public Library which sends a free book per month to every child under five in DC. To date, Books From Birth has mailed more than one million books to children in DC.
- Led the fight to ensure that every public school has a full-time librarian to work with students and teachers on literacy and reading.
- Focused oversight on improving school meals in school and co-introduced legislation to make free meals universal for all students.
- Fought to increase school funding for each school, including expanding Out Of School Time funding support to ensure students have more academic, social, and extracurricular programming.
- Advocating for every school to have full-time nursing care onsite and to support and train school communities on health and medication needs of students.
Transportation
- Part of DC’s leadership team that secured $200 million for WMATA to avoid a devastating fiscal cliff this year.
- Introduced and led the Council to pass Metro For DC, which will provide every DC resident with a monthly, recurring balance of $100 on a SmarTrip Card.
- Led the Council to pass the STEER Act, which gives teeth to the District’s traffic cameras and brings real consequences for drivers (from DC or any state) who speed or drive recklessly. It also closes gaps in enforcement against people convicted of drunk driving.
- Funded the expansion of 24/7 bus service for 12 of DC’s most important bus routes to support DC nightlife and help workers get home at all hours.
- Created and funded DC’s forthcoming e-bike rebate, with a clear eye toward equity, that will help more people own an e-bike, providing a more generous rebate for lower income riders and cover the cost for modifications for people with different physical abilities.
- Oversaw the unprecedented protected bike lane network expansion, investing millions in active transport options.
Leading on Climate Change and Environmental Issues
- Supercharged the District’s ability to fund green, energy-efficient projects and help large buildings meet climate goals around energy usage with dedicated funding.
- Passed legislation protecting the removal of Heritage trees during development.
- Introduced the Healthy Homes Act to turbocharge replacement of gas appliances with electric appliances, accelerating the transition away from natural gas.
- In 2016, created DC’s Commission on Climate Change Resiliency to ensure a group of people were focused on the District’s need to mitigate the coming harms of a warmer climate and do our part to transition to a clean-energy future.
Fair and Ethical Campaigns and Elections
- Created the District’s Fair Elections Program that removed big money from our local elections.
- Spearheaded the extremely successful Mail-In Voting efforts for the 2020 election and beyond during the pandemic.
- Closed loopholes in campaign finance laws around pay-to-play donations and contracting.
- Put in place Automatic Voter Registration that boosted participation in local elections.