Dear Friend,

As you may have heard, TOPA rights are under attack. The Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act, or TOPA, gives tenants in buildings up for sale the right to be offered the first opportunity to buy their building. TOPA presents DC residents with a way to maintain affordability, prevent displacement, and become owners. Ever since DC passed ambitious anti-displacement legislation in the 1970s and 1980s, the landlord lobby has been trying to undermine those protections, including TOPA. 

In 2018, single-family homes were exempted from TOPA. In 2022, TOPA exemptions for office-to-residential conversions downtown for 10 years were passed. Now in 2024, we’re facing high interest rates, and anxieties about District revenue; is this the time to weaken one of the best tools DC tenants have to dictate the future of their communities?

DC Jobs With Justice, in partnership with several nonprofits and community-based organizations, is mobilizing residents to defend DC's tenant rights. Join us on Saturday, March 9 at 11:00AM online to learn more about your rights as a tenant and how to defend them!

In Solidarity,