WASHINGTON, DC — Yesterday, I learned through a Chicago news report that Keith Pettigrew is leaving his position as Executive Director of the DC Housing Authority to lead the Chicago Housing Authority. I want to be direct: I am disappointed in how I found out, in this decision itself, and most of all in what this means for the thousands of DC residents who were counting on this leadership to finally deliver.

The people living in DCHA communities have been let down before. Repeatedly. They have endured poor living conditions, unresponsive maintenance, and years of dysfunction at an agency that exists specifically to serve them. When Keith Pettigrew was hired, there was real reason for optimism. He came with credentials. He came with a personal story — a DC native, a product of public housing himself. He walked every site. He testified before my committee under oath about what it would take to right this ship. And he released a Three-Year Recovery Plan — not a one-year plan, not a two-year plan because he said, correctly, that a turnaround of this magnitude requires sustained commitment over time.

Those residents believed that. The agency asked them to believe it. And now, less than a year and a half after releasing that plan, he is leaving for a larger agency and a city he described in his own application as one he “loves.”

I understand ambition. But DCHA residents do not get to move on to the next opportunity. They live with the consequences of every false start, every leadership transition, every reset. That is the weight of this moment, not the inconvenience to the Council, not the disruption to agency operations, but the fact that real people in real homes must once again absorb the cost of instability they did nothing to create.

That is why I am frustrated. That is why this matters. This departure raises questions the Board must answer publicly: What commitments did Director Pettigrew make regarding his tenure? What protection exists for residents when leadership changes abruptly? The public and the people living in DCHA communities deserve answers.

The Council currently has no formal role in confirming the DCHA Executive Director. That needs to change. The stakes are too high, and the consequences fall too directly on residents for this appointment to happen entirely outside of Council oversight. I intend to push for that change.

The next director must come prepared to stay. The Board must be transparent with the Council and the public about its selection process. And whoever takes this role must understand that DCHA residents have already waited too long. They are not a proving ground. They are not a stepping stone. They are the reason this agency exists, and they deserve a leader who walks in the door knowing that and meaning it.

 DCHA’s challenges were never going to be resolved in a honeymoon period. The work was always going to get harder before it got easier. These residents do not need another promising start. They need a leader willing to stay long enough to help this agency earn its way back to credibility.

Enough false starts. Enough resets. These residents deserve better and I intend to make sure they get it.

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