From Eligibility to Opportunity: Supporting DC Residents Facing New Federal Work Requirements

H.R. 1, commonly known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, became law on July 4, 2025, introducing new federal work requirements for certain SNAP and Medicaid recipients. Although the law applies nationwide, each jurisdiction is responsible for implementation. In the District, DHS is helping residents understand and meet the new requirements so they can maintain their benefits. DHS and the Department of Health Care Finance have launched a District-wide campaign to explain the changes, along with a new website, workrequirements.dc.gov, featuring key information and a combined pre-screening tool that helps residents determine whether the requirements apply to them.

New SNAP work requirements took effect in June 2026, and Medicaid work requirements begin in January 2027. If not implemented well, the changes in H.R. 1 that specify new eligibility determinations for public benefits could lead to thousands of District households losing their benefits, unless they meet new work requirements. Here at DHS, we have been laser focused on how to help ensure residents meet those requirements and maintain their benefits. While acknowledging the reality that a percentage of our residents will lose their benefits, we are working diligently to minimize the impact of these changes.

But the role of DHS’s Economic Security Administration is not just to help residents connect to benefits like SNAP and TANF — programs that are a lifeline for one-fifth of District residents. Our North Star is helping residents participating in these programs develop the skills, knowledge, and experience they need to grow their incomes and build economic mobility and lasting success for themselves and their families. So, our teams have long been busy working with our community partners, testing new ideas and rolling out initiatives using innovative approaches to produce better outcomes for our customers.

H.R. 1 was an additional catalyst to create programs that keep residents connected to their benefits and to improve the programs we already had in place. Our SNAP Employment & Training (SNAP E&T) team had already been working with providers across the city to offer occupational training, education, work readiness, job placement, and other assistance to SNAP customers who choose to enroll. The team also offers individualized coaching sessions and holds monthly webinar workshops for participants, covering topics like interviewing, resume writing, and financial literacy. In response to H.R. 1, we worked with The Lab @ DC to build a SNAP Volunteer Program from scratch to give people more options to meet work requirements — and I'm proud to report we're now at more than 20 volunteer sites, with nearly 2,000 slots for SNAP customers who need them.

From the very start of their engagement with DHS, our TANF customers are connected to our Office of Work Opportunity, our TANF Employment and Education Program (TEP), and our Tuition Assistance Program Initiative for TANF (TAPIT), so we can make sure they receive the coaching, training, and work placement that help them build the economic resilience they’ll need to succeed when benefits end. Right now, we are doing a deep dive into these programs, modifying our contracts to focus on outcomes that lead to real economic mobility, not just compliance with requirements to keep benefits. In FY27, we will be releasing a new competitive solicitation for our workforce programs that will reflect our commitment to real outcomes for the families we serve.

We know that when incomes grow, families in crisis move toward stability; they increase their savings, begin building wealth, and start moving out of poverty. Our work developing better workforce programs and outcomes hasn’t just been focused on the public benefits side of DHS. In our Family Services Administration, we've also made significant changes to the Family Re-Housing Stabilization Program (FRSP) to ensure that when families move out of shelter into an apartment, they are connected to employment opportunities that will help keep them in stable housing after their temporary subsidy has ended.

This approach is already helping participating families get on the right track; from FY25 to FY26, we have seen a 52% increase in income for families entering FRSP. While we still have lots of work to do to help families earn a living wage and connect to careers that help them prepare for the Benefit Bridge, the data is showing us that we are moving in the right direction.

Our goal with families in shelter is always to help them get stabilized — but to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence once those families end their episode of homelessness, we work to connect them with robust workforce programs through our TEP providers and to employment through our partners at the DC Department of Employment Services, Aim Hire, and the Greater Washington Urban League — and to get them into permanent housing. Temporary housing subsidies that we’re able to provide through a variety of exit paths, coupled with strong workforce programs, are the solution to help families create sustainable pathways out of shelter.

We're also working to expand workforce programs for singles in shelter. In addition to the work beds we provide at our 801 East shelter — dedicated beds for up to two years for people who are working or in an educational program — soon we'll be rolling out work beds for up to 15 women at our E Street Bridge Housing. And we're moving forward with plans to bring more job training and certification programs into our low-barrier shelters and our day centers — because as the District grows and develops, we want to make sure that people experiencing homelessness can seize the opportunities that come with that development and use them to get back on track.

Our Peer Case Management Institute (PCMI), in partnership with the Howard University School of Social Work, is about to enter its fourth year and has also been delivering great results. The program responds to the growing need for skilled case managers in the District by providing individuals with lived experience of homelessness the training and support needed to become successful case managers within the homeless services system. In our most recent cohort, 19 of 34 graduates are already employed — and that's just since graduating in June, and in a difficult job market to boot! And a total of 45 participants have moved off TANF. We continue to support participants in their job search after graduation, and we partner with the DC Department of Employment Services to do a warm handoff for alumni who need additional resources.

Taken together, these efforts reflect something bigger than any single program: a shift in how we think about what success looks like at DHS, and a shift toward real economic mobility for DC residents. We are not simply processing benefits and providing shelter and housing services. We are partnering with the households we serve, our provider community, and partner agencies to provide real opportunity. This is what real partnership looks like — and this is a model that embraces efficiency of resources.

It's not enough to help someone meet a work requirement or maintain a benefit for another month. Our job is to help the residents we serve build the skills, stability, and income that let them move forward on their own terms. Whether it's a mother in FRSP watching her income climb past what she thought was possible, a PCMI graduate stepping into a case management career, or a SNAP customer finding a volunteer slot that keeps them on track, these are the moments that show what's possible when we think creatively and push the work forward.

We still have work to do, but the direction is clear. As the federal landscape shifts under H.R. 1, DHS will keep meeting residents where they are, with the tools and support they need not just to stay eligible, but to thrive.