While most of the country has moved on from pandemic restrictions, D.C. remains governed by Covid-era court policies that are quietly destabilizing its housing market and public safety. Unless the Trump administration addresses this judicial dysfunction directly, its renewed efforts to restore order in the capital will fall short.
The courts may seem like an unlikely battlefield in the fight against crime. But D.C.’s broken civil judicial system is directly fueling the housing insecurity that leads to vacant buildings, social disorder, and rising violence. The root cause? A remote-first hearing policy that the D.C. Superior Court has refused to end, long after the public health rationale has disappeared.
Unlike Virginia and Maryland, where in-person hearings are mandatory, D.C. defaults to remote proceedings for landlord-resident cases.
Before Covid, a nonpayment case could often be resolved in a day through face-to-face mediation. Now, even the most straightforward cases are delayed…
Read the full story from the Washington Business Journal.
