What Is Happening Now

DC residents are facing record rents, unsafe living conditions, and long-standing public housing left vacant or distressed while corporate landlords and developers profit. The DC Housing Authority has allowed units to remain unlivable for years, failed to move people into safe housing, and repeatedly ignored disability rights.

Rent control loopholes, such as voluntary agreements and vacancy increases, continue to undermine tenant protections, while cuts to ERAP push families toward eviction and homelessness. Weak housing code enforcement, utility shutoffs, predatory cash buyouts, and erosion of TOPA protections accelerate displacement, particularly in long-standing Black neighborhoods, while new construction too often prioritizes the wealthiest residents over everyone else.

What DC Deserves

Housing is a human right and DC residents deserve safe, stable homes they can afford. Families should be able to remain in their neighborhoods when buildings are sold, not pushed out by displacement driven by speculation and rising costs. Seniors and long-time residents deserve the ability to age in place with dignity, supported by strong tools like the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), property tax relief, and housing assistance that reflects real costs.

Renters deserve meaningful protections, including a real Tenant Bill of Rights and an Office of the Tenant Advocate empowered to stand up to predatory landlords, especially in communities that have long faced disinvestment. Every worker in the District deserves a fair shot at homeownership or, at minimum, the ability to save, build stability, and avoid being rent-burdened in the city they helped build. Stopping displacement of long-time Black and brown residents must be a core priority of District housing policy.

Oye Fights For

As a Councilmember, Oye will fight to make housing in the District affordable, stable, and centered on people, not corporations. He will prioritize preservation first, recognizing that protecting existing affordable housing is faster, less expensive, and more effective than rebuilding after units are lost. Oye supports dedicating a significant share of the Housing Production Trust Fund to preservation, including TOPA transactions, nonprofit acquisitions, and limited-equity cooperatives that keep housing affordable long term.

Oye will restore and fully fund the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), fully fund the Local Rent Supplement Program, and pair assistance with a right to counsel in eviction cases. He will strengthen protections against rent gouging, illegal fees, utility shutoffs, and voucher abuse, and bring aggressive oversight to DCHA and DHCD so the housing system serves tenants, not slumlords or speculative developers.

Oye will defend and restore TOPA, including reversing recent rollbacks that stripped protections from small buildings, fully funding the First Right Purchase Program, and passing common-sense reforms that strengthen transparency, fund tenant support organizations, and penalize bad actors. He will expand social housing, community land trusts, and pathways to ownership so long-time renters can build stability and generational wealth, and support public financing tools that keep public dollars circulating locally rather than enriching corporate landlords.

Oye will also strengthen rent stabilization by reducing the maximum annual increase to the Consumer Price Index, expanding rent control to newer buildings, and funding proactive inspections to ensure housing is safe, accessible, and habitable.

What Is Happening Now

DC is facing a public health crisis driven by policy failure, budget choices, and deep racial inequities. Federal threats to Medicaid and SNAP are colliding with local decisions that eliminated the DC Healthcare Alliance for 25,000 residents and cut TANF cash assistance for 14,000 families with children. This is an issue of dignity and lack of Home Rule.

DC is also failing mothers and babies. Black women face far higher rates of preterm birth and maternal mortality, and recent reports give DC a failing grade for outcomes for moms and infants. These outcomes reflect delayed care, closed clinics, understaffed hospitals, and systems that fail to respond when Black women raise concerns.

Low Medicaid reimbursement rates continue to strain providers and limit access to care, especially East of the River. Residents travel farther for care or go without it, while medical debt grows. Pharmacy benefit managers inflate drug prices, driving up costs for patients across the District.

DC is at the center of overlapping overdose and homelessness crises. The District ranks among the worst in the country for drug related harm, with opioid overdoses driving preventable deaths, particularly among people experiencing homelessness. Immigrant families face barriers to preventive care, and escalating attacks on reproductive and gender affirming care threaten health, autonomy, and lives.

What DC Deserves

DC residents deserve a health care system that treats care as a human right and responds with urgency when lives are at stake. That means reliable Medicaid, a fully funded DC Healthcare Alliance, and targeted action to end racial disparities in maternal and infant health.

Residents deserve neighborhood based care with no cost at the point of service, including primary care, reproductive care, gender affirming care, prenatal and postpartum support, mental health, substance use treatment, and long term care. Providers and pharmacies must be reimbursed at rates that allow them to remain open and serve patients where they live.

DC must confront overdoses with a true public health approach centered on harm reduction, treatment access, housing stability, and continuity of care. Health care must be accessible regardless of income, immigration status, gender identity, or zip code.

Oye Fights For

As a pharmacist and public health professional, Oye has seen how gaps in coverage, unaffordable prescriptions, and unstable access to care push families into crisis. As a former ANC Commissioner in Ward 8, he witnessed how underinvestment and clinic closures harm Black families, seniors, immigrants, and people experiencing homelessness.

As a Councilmember, Oye will fight to fully restore and permanently fund DC Medicaid and the DC Healthcare Alliance so coverage cannot be stripped away again. He will oppose budgets that eliminate care for 25,000 residents and raise Medicaid reimbursement rates so clinics, doctors, and pharmacies can serve patients in their communities.

Oye will prioritize Black maternal and infant health, expand public clinics that provide care at no cost, and take on pharmacy benefit managers by ending spread pricing and lowering prescription drug costs. He will push for a comprehensive public health response to overdoses and homelessness and protect reproductive and gender affirming care. He supports a universal health care vision that moves DC toward a single payer Medicare for All system.

What Is Happening Now

The District is denied basic human rights. DC residents are taxed without representation, governed without consent, and stripped of democratic power over our own lives. Members of Congress from all around the country—who do not live here, raise families here, or answer to DC voters—have more authority over DC laws and budgets than the people who call the District home. That is not democracy.

This lack of self-government creates constant instability. Congress routinely overrides DC laws, blocks local budget decisions, and interferes with how the District raises and spends its own revenue. These actions put jobs, health care, housing, and public services at risk and leave residents powerless to protect themselves.

At the same time, federal power is being used to intimidate and terrorize communities. ICE operates in neighborhoods, workplaces, and near schools. National Guard deployments and emboldened policing have created an environment where children grow up surrounded by force, immigrant families live in fear of being taken, and entire communities are treated as expendable. As the child of African immigrants, Oye understands how dangerous it feels to live under a system where your presence is constantly questioned and your rights are never guaranteed. Without statehood, DC residents are uniquely exposed to these abuses.

What DC Deserves

DC deserves Statehood Now!

The District deserves full democratic rights, equal representation, and the power to govern ourselves without congressional interference. That means control over our budget, laws, and public land; respect for voter-approved initiatives; and an end to federal domination of daily life in the District.

DC residents deserve a local government that refuses to carry out unjust federal agendas, actively defends immigrant communities, and protects civil liberties. Statehood is not symbolic. It is the only way to ensure safety, stability, and dignity for the people of the District. Until statehood is achieved, DC deserves leaders like Oye who will confront federal overreach directly and use every available tool to defend home rule.

Oye Fights For

Oye is already doing this work as DC’s elected U.S. Representative. As a Councilmember, he will continue organizing aggressively for DC statehood while defending home rule at every level. He will oppose congressional overrides, protect voter-approved initiatives, and decouple District policy from harmful federal actions when necessary.

Oye will enforce the Sanctuary Values Act, end cooperation between District agencies and ICE, and hold agencies accountable when they violate the law. He will expand language access, fund immigrant legal defense, and organize in coalition with labor, civil rights groups, and leaders nationwide to push back against authoritarian interference. For Oye, the fight for home rule is about survival, dignity, and real democracy for the people of the District.

Education

What Is Happening Now

DC is facing an education system where funding is driven by politics instead of student need. Early educators rely on unstable grants rather than guaranteed, recurring support, even though early learning is foundational to long term success. Students attend schools that prioritize testing while public dollars flow to outside contractors, oversized construction projects, and administrative growth that outpaces classroom investment. Families are paying unsustainable costs for early care because reimbursement rates fail to reflect the real cost of providing quality child care. Students encounter police in schools and disciplinary practices that feed the school to prison pipeline. Too many youth and adults lack access to strong literacy support, limiting opportunity at school, work, and in daily life. DC residents also carry some of the highest student debt in the country, even as the District holds billions in reserve.

What DC Deserves

DC residents deserve an education system that supports every learner from birth through college and recognizes that adult and continuing education are essential to opportunity in the District. Families deserve affordable, high quality early childhood care funded as core public education. Students deserve strong neighborhood schools with enough teachers, counselors, nurses, and mental health staff. Youth and adults deserve access to high quality literacy instruction so everyone can read, write, and participate fully in civic and economic life. Educators deserve fair pay and stable funding. And every young person deserves to know they can attend UDC tuition free and start their future without student debt.

Oye Fights For

Oye will fight to treat early childhood education as essential public infrastructure. He will fund care and learning from birth-to-three through the per student formula so early education receives stable and predictable support. He will fully fund and permanently protect the Early Childhood Educator Pay Equity Fund and expand it to include all early educators, including part time and mixed delivery staff. He will raise child care reimbursement rates so providers can meet the real cost of care and ensure families do not spend more than ten percent of their income on child care when the Birth-to-Three Act is fully implemented.

Oye will strengthen neighborhood schools by expanding afterschool programs, investing in community schools that provide tutoring, nutrition, mental health care, and literacy support, and increasing school funding East of the River. He will invest in youth and adult literacy programs through schools, libraries, and community based providers. He will remove police from DCPS schools and invest instead in counselors, nurses, and social workers. Oye will hold DCPS accountable for carrying out Council mandates, including support for immigrant educators, push governance reforms that restore democratic voice in education, and make UDC tuition free so every DC resident has a real path forward without debt.

What Is Happening Now

DC continues to rely on public safety strategies that have failed for decades. Residents fund the largest police budget in District history while the root causes of violence, trauma, untreated mental health needs, housing instability, and economic insecurity, go unaddressed. Black youth, immigrants, and unhoused neighbors are overpoliced and criminalized for poverty, fare evasion, or survival. Students face armed officers in schools when what they need is mental health care, academic support, and stable housing.

At the same time, DC’s lack of statehood makes residents less safe. The District is uniquely vulnerable to federal interference and “policing without accountability,” where unelected and unrepresentative federal actors can operate with limited transparency. Residents have seen chaotic federal enforcement, whether through National Guard or ICE deployments, show up without clear coordination, community communication, or democratic oversight. When armed agents operate in DC without accountability to DC voters, it increases fear, instability, and the risk of harm, rather than improving safety.

Locally, residents also see secretive surveillance, expanded pretrial detention, and policing approaches that deepen militarization while teachers, nurses, mental health workers, and violence interrupters struggle for adequate funding. This imbalance undermines trust, wastes resources, and leaves communities less safe rather than more secure.

What DC Deserves

DC residents deserve to feel safe in their homes, schools, neighborhoods, and places of worship. Every resident, whether Jewish, Muslim, gay, Black, Asian, immigrant, disabled, housed or unhoused, deserves to know the District will take threats and harm seriously and respond with competence and care.

Safety also means democracy. DC residents deserve full self-government, because living under federal occupation without representation is not safety, it’s vulnerability. A safe DC is a DC where public safety is accountable to the people who live here, with clear oversight, transparent rules, and agencies that answer to residents.

People deserve crisis responses that actually help, including mental health professionals, trained de-escalators, youth workers, and violence interrupters. Young people deserve counselors, teachers, and nurses not a school-to-prison pipeline. Families deserve a District that invests in well-being, creates real opportunity, and ensures every student can attend UDC tuition-free so they can build a stable future.

Oye Fights For

Oye fights for a community-first approach to safety that invests in people before punishment. As a pharmacist and elected neighborhood official, he understands that violence is closely tied to trauma, untreated mental illness, housing instability, and lack of opportunity. As a Councilmember, he will expand violence interruption programs, youth employment, and community-based prevention, and ensure mental health emergencies are handled by trained responders rather than armed officers whenever possible.

Oye will remove police from DCPS schools and invest instead in counselors, nurses, and social workers who support the whole child. He will continue hosting expungement clinics, strengthen reentry supports, and make UDC tuition-free so every student has a real path to opportunity.

Oye will oppose expansions of pretrial detention, reject efforts to create new crimes or longer sentences that do not improve safety. He will also increase oversight of MPD and demand transparency about who MPD partners with, whether other jurisdictions, private corporations, or foreign entities, including any technology, training, or surveillance relationships. DC residents deserve to know what tools are being used on them, who is advising local policing, what data is collected, and how abuses are prevented and punished.

Finally, Oye will fight for statehood and defend home rule because DC cannot be truly safe when residents live under federal interference, where unaccountable agents can operate in our communities without democratic control.

What Is Happening Now

DC seniors, the foundation of our communities, are under pressure from every direction. Federal attacks under Trump and his allies threaten Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid through proposed budget cuts, privatization schemes, and weakened consumer protections. Prescription drug costs remain too high, while scams and fraud targeting older adults grow more aggressive and sophisticated. Locally, proposed cuts to the Department of Aging and Community Living put meals, transportation, home care, caregiver support, and senior wellness programs at risk. Rising property taxes, housing costs, and utility bills are forcing seniors out of the neighborhoods they built. Too many older adults, especially Black seniors east of the Anacostia River, face food insecurity, limited health access, unreliable transportation, isolation, and displacement when they should be aging with dignity, stability, and respect.

What DC Seniors Deserve

DC seniors deserve to age in place safely, affordably, and in community. They deserve secure Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits protected from federal raids and privatization. Seniors should be able to afford their medications, keep their homes, access nutritious food, and rely on accessible transportation, safe sidewalks, and reliable paratransit to stay connected to care and community life. They deserve strong home and community based services so they are not forced into institutions, as well as support for family and paid caregivers. Seniors deserve protection from scams and financial exploitation, clear help navigating benefits and taxes, and relief from rising property taxes and utility costs. Above all, DC seniors deserve policies that support independence, reduce isolation, and allow them to remain active and respected members of their communities for as long as they choose.

Oye Fights For

As a pharmacist and DC’s elected U.S. Representative, Oye understands how federal decisions shape seniors’ health, finances, and daily lives, and how those impacts are felt most sharply in neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River. He will fight to protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid from federal cuts and privatization, and will work to shield DC residents from harmful federal actions whenever possible. Oye will fully fund the Department of Aging and Community Living, restore and expand meals, transportation, home care, caregiver support, and senior wellness programs, and strengthen Safe at Home so seniors can remain safely in their own homes. 

Oye will fight to lower prescription drug costs, protect Medicare drug negotiation authority, and reform pharmacy benefit managers that inflate prices. Oye will restore Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP) funding for low income seniors, strengthen property tax relief and utility assistance, expand free tax preparation, benefits navigation, and anti fraud programs, and support immigrant care workers who make aging in place possible. Seniors deserve dignity, stability, independence, and a real voice in shaping DC’s future.

What Is Happening Now

Young people in DC are navigating systems that do not meet their needs. Schools, community safety, housing, and health care decisions are made through adult institutions that often respond to harm with punishment instead of care. Youth face curfews, increased surveillance, and police presence in schools and public spaces while access to afterschool programs, late night recreation, mental health services, and job opportunities remains limited or uneven. Foster youth are frequently moved between placements, disconnected from schools, and pushed toward adulthood without stable housing or transition support. Immigrant youth live with fear as ICE activity near schools and neighborhoods separates families and disrupts learning. Young people face barriers to reproductive and sexual health care and accurate education, while national attacks on youth autonomy continue. Climate decisions made without youth input threaten their health and safety, especially in communities already exposed to pollution and extreme heat.

What DC Youth Deserve

DC youth deserve stability, dignity, and opportunity. They deserve safe places to gather, learn, and build community, including accessible afterschool and late night spaces. Youth deserve timely access to mental health care without stigma or punishment. Schools should support students as whole people, not rely on policing or surveillance to manage behavior. Youth deserve access to reproductive and sexual health care, including contraception, abortion care, and HIV prevention, regardless of income, immigration status, or age. Foster youth deserve stable housing, continuity in education, trauma informed care, and real transition support so aging out does not lead to homelessness or incarceration. Young people deserve paid work opportunities, internships, and pathways into union careers. They deserve a future protected from climate harm and a voice in decisions that affect their lives.

Oye Fights For

Oye believes youth safety comes from care and opportunity, not punishment. He will oppose youth curfews, school policing, and expanded surveillance that criminalize young people. He will fight to expand afterschool and late night youth spaces, invest in violence interruption rooted in community trust, and fully fund youth development programs that offer paid work, career exploration, and pathways into union jobs. 

Oye will partner with youth-led and youth serving organizations to expand access to mental health care, housing stability, and year round employment. He will protect reproductive and sexual health access for young people, defend comprehensive and medically accurate education, and ensure schools are safe and supportive. Oye will keep ICE out of schools and public services so youth can learn without fear of family separation. 

Oye will strengthen protections for foster youth by ensuring education continuity, housing stability, and transition support. As a public health professional, he understands environmental policy is youth policy and will fight to reduce pollution, extreme heat, and climate risks that harm young people. Oye will follow youth leadership and ensure young people have a real voice in shaping DC’s future.

Environment

What DC Deserves

DC residents deserve clean air, safe water, and healthy homes in every ward, whether they live East of the River, Uptown, or West of the Park. Communities deserve protection from extreme heat, flooding, severe storms, and the environmental harms that fall hardest on Black, brown, and low-income neighborhoods. Families deserve homes that do not make them sick, utility bills they can afford, and infrastructure that is built to withstand a changing climate.

People deserve parks, trees, shade, and green space that cool their blocks, clean waterways like the Anacostia and Potomac, and neighborhoods free from plastic waste and toxic pollution. And the District deserves a clean energy future that cuts carbon pollution, improves public health, creates union jobs, and delivers affordable, stable housing.

Oye Fights For

Oye will fight for a climate resilient District that protects residents and addresses environmental harm at its source. He will push to accelerate decarbonization, strengthen the Carbon Free DC strategy, and move the District toward full clean energy through expanded community solar, weatherization, and building retrofits that lower emissions and household costs.

Oye strongly supports the Healthy Homes Act and will fight to fully fund it by protecting the Sustainable Energy Trust Fund from being raided. As a pharmacist, he has seen firsthand how gas appliances and unhealthy housing contribute to asthma and respiratory illness, especially among children East of the River. He will ensure low-income households can transition to safe, efficient electric appliances at no cost and oppose new installations of fossil fuel furnaces and water heaters, paired with full support so no one is left behind.

Oye supports a bottle bill to establish a deposit and return system for beverage containers, reduce pollution, protect waterways, and create local jobs. He will require large beverage companies to take responsibility for the waste they produce while protecting small businesses. He will also invest in trees, cooling centers, stormwater infrastructure, all-electric public fleets including school buses, and a Green New Deal for Social Housing so climate action delivers real benefits to residents.

What Is Happening Now

DC residents continue to live with polluted air, plastic waste, and waterways burdened by decades of neglect. Communities East of the River face higher exposure to heat, flooding, and environmental hazards while receiving fewer protective investments. Children suffer from asthma and respiratory illness linked to unhealthy housing, while public dollars are spent treating illness instead of preventing it.

The District allows new fossil fuel infrastructure that locks residents into higher costs and long-term harm. Funds meant to lower energy bills and improve health have been diverted away from their purpose, delaying progress and breaking trust. Climate change is already affecting daily life, but the response remains uneven, slow, and disconnected from the communities most impacted.

What Is Happening Now

People with disabilities in DC face barriers despite clear civil rights protections. Housing, transportation, public buildings, sidewalks, shelters, and government offices are often inaccessible or only partially compliant with the ADA. Programs that are legally required to be usable are difficult or impossible to access in practice. Inaccessible websites, poor communication access, and delayed accommodations block residents from applying for benefits, attending public meetings, or participating fully in civic life. Enforcement is inconsistent, and residents are pushed between agencies without clear timelines or resolution. Too often, accessibility failures are treated as paperwork problems instead of civil rights violations, leaving people excluded from services they are legally entitled to.

What DC Residents Deserve

DC residents with disabilities deserve full and equal access to all District programs, services, activities, and benefits as guaranteed under the ADA. That includes housing, transportation, employment, education, recreation, public safety services, and government offices. Residents deserve effective communication through accessible documents, interpretation, captioning, and assistive technology. They deserve timely accommodations without retaliation or unnecessary barriers. Public buildings, sidewalks, transit systems, and digital services must work for everyone. People with disabilities deserve a government that treats accessibility as a civil right and enforces the law consistently across the District.

Oye Fights For

Oye will make ADA compliance a baseline requirement across the District and enforce the civil rights of people with disabilities. He will strengthen oversight of the Office of Disability Rights and work closely with the DC Office of Human Rights to ensure Title II of the ADA is enforced across all agencies. He will require clear accountability, public reporting, and firm timelines when agencies fail to provide access, accommodations, or effective communication. Oye will push for regular audits of physical and digital accessibility in government buildings, housing programs, transportation systems, and public services. He will ensure residents can file complaints easily, are protected from retaliation, and receive timely resolution. He will expand accessible housing, invest in accessible transit and infrastructure, and hold agencies and contractors accountable for violations. Accessibility is the law, and Oye will make sure the District follows it.

What Is Happening Now

DC residents live in a District where wages lag behind the cost of rent, groceries, and transportation while unemployment remains high. Tipped workers are facing the rollback of Initiative 82, leaving them exposed to subminimum wages, unpredictable income, harassment, and wage theft. Workers experience stolen overtime, unpaid tips, sudden deactivations, and misclassification that strips away basic protections.

Too many employees are pressured to work while sick or return to work immediately after giving birth because paid leave is inadequate or unenforced. Federal workers have been harmed by sudden mass firings and layoffs, yet the local government too often treats their economic security as someone else’s problem. These conditions are the result of policy choices that favor powerful interests over working people.

What DC Deserves

DC residents deserve jobs that pay a real living wage and allow every worker to stay and thrive in the District. Every person working in DC, tipped, hourly, gig, government, or contracted, deserves stable schedules, fair pay, and safe conditions on the job. Workers deserve One Fair Wage so no one is forced to rely on a subminimum tipped wage or unpredictable income to survive. They deserve protection from wage theft, misclassification, retaliation, and abusive practices that undermine their rights.

DC residents also deserve a government that respects the will of voters. When workers vote for better wages and protections, those decisions should be honored, not overturned. And federal workers who were laid off or pushed aside deserve a local government that supports them, values their experience, and helps them rebuild their careers here at home.

Oye Fights For

Oye will fight to raise the minimum wage to at least twenty dollars an hour on the way to twenty five dollars and ensure wages keep pace with the cost of living. He will defend and fully restore One Fair Wage by completing Initiative 82 as voters approved it, rejecting caps, delays, or rollbacks that punish tipped workers. Oye will strengthen enforcement against wage theft, misclassification, unpaid overtime, and retaliation, and ensure workers can safely report violations.

He will push for clear pay transparency and fair compensation standards for gig and delivery workers, expand apprenticeships and pathways into union jobs, and require strong labor standards on publicly supported projects. Oye will ensure District agencies model fair scheduling, paid leave, and safe workplaces. He will also create targeted support for federal workers harmed by mass layoffs so they can remain in the District and rebuild their careers with dignity.

What DC Deserves

DC residents deserve strong labor laws that protect their rights at work and guarantee a real voice on the job. Every worker deserves the freedom to organize, bargain collectively, and strike without fear of retaliation. DC government workers deserve to be treated as valued public servants, not as budget line items or political targets. They deserve transparent negotiations, fair wages and benefits, safe working conditions, and respect for the essential services they provide every day across the District.

Workers across public agencies, from health and human services to public works, housing, fire and EMS, parks, and regulatory agencies, deserve a government that recognizes their expertise and invests in their ability to deliver effective services. All workers deserve fair scheduling, paid leave, telework options where possible, and due process protections against unjust discipline or termination. And they deserve a District that uses its budget and contracting power to support union labor, responsible employers, and workplaces rooted in dignity and respect.

Oye Fights For

Oye will fight to pass a strong Workers Bill of Rights and establish a District Department of Labor and Worker Rights with real enforcement authority. He will work to restore the right to strike for DC government workers, strengthen collective bargaining, and reform management rights doctrines that weaken worker power and sideline union voices.

Oye supports a District level PRO Act to protect organizing and bargaining rights, will hold employers accountable for union busting, and will bring repeat violators before public hearings when necessary. He will defend the right of DC government unions to negotiate wages, benefits, and working conditions, and ensure that negotiations are transparent and centered on workers themselves.

Oye will require project labor agreements and prevailing wage standards on publicly supported projects, expand union apprenticeship pathways, and ensure public dollars support high road employers who respect workers and collective bargaining.

What Is Happening Now

DC workers live in a District where too many people are punished for organizing, silenced on the job, or threatened for joining a union. Government employees face outdated laws that deny them the right to strike, limit their bargaining power, and keep negotiations out of view of the workers they affect. Too often, public workers are blamed for systemic failures rather than treated as partners in delivering effective services.

At the same time, weak enforcement allows union busting, misclassification, gig work loopholes, and low road contractors to thrive, even while receiving public subsidies. Employers are allowed to intimidate workers, delay bargaining, or retaliate against organizers with little consequence. This undermines both worker dignity and the quality of services DC residents rely on every day.

No worker should have to choose between their job and their rights. And no District government committed to justice should allow workers who keep the city running to be treated as expendable.

What DC Deserves

DC residents deserve a District where every immigrant is treated with dignity and can live, work, learn, and seek help without fear. Immigrant families deserve to access schools, clinics, shelters, legal services, and public programs safely, regardless of status. People deserve strong language access so they can receive information and services in the language they speak without barriers. Immigrant communities deserve protection from racial profiling, harassment, and federal intimidation. Every person who calls DC home deserves equal rights, due process, and a local government that defends them from federal overreach and unlawful enforcement.

Oye Fights For

Oye will fight to make DC a true sanctuary city where protections are enforced in practice, not just promised in law. He will end all cooperation between MPD and ICE, enforce the Sanctuary Values Act, and ensure District agencies do not assist in deportations or federal immigration enforcement. He will oppose any detention facilities in DC and any transfer of residents into detention camps. Oye will expand sanctuary protections across schools, clinics, shelters, and public programs so families can seek help without fear, and he will demand clear guidance and accountability when those protections are violated.

Oye will strengthen language access enforcement, increase funding for immigration legal services, and expand emergency support for immigrant families facing detention or separation. He will use Council oversight to hold agencies accountable, fund legal defense, and ensure immigrant residents can access food, housing, health care, and education without double standards. He will defend universal voting rights for noncitizens and expand civil rights and due process protections so immigrant communities can participate fully and advocate for themselves safely.

What Is Happening Now

Immigrants in DC are being targeted by ICE in schools, workplaces, and homes, often with local police present or complicit, undermining community trust and spreading fear. Federal agents operate with little accountability while families live with the threat of detention, separation, or violence. Language barriers and misinformation keep residents from essential services, and gaps in enforcement allow District systems to be used for surveillance and harm. Without strong oversight and enforcement, sanctuary protections remain fragile, and immigrant families continue to live in fear of the very institutions meant to serve them.

What DC Small Businesses Deserve

Small business owners deserve a District where businesses are treated as essential to our culture, our economy, and our neighborhoods, not as an afterthought to large developers. Local shops, restaurants, makers, and creative businesses deserve clear and predictable rules, timely communication from government agencies, and systems that work. Immigrant and Black owned businesses deserve equal access to District programs and capital, not processes that favor insiders or those with wealth and connections. Small businesses employ a large share of DC residents, and every corridor from Minnesota Avenue to Georgia Avenue to Columbia Heights deserves occupied storefronts, strong foot traffic, and a government that sees local businesses as partners in building a thriving and creative city.

Oye Fights For

Oye will fight for a small business economy rooted in local ownership, fairness, and real partnership with the District. He will fix broken back end systems across agencies so business owners are not forced to navigate confusing, outdated, and disconnected offices just to stay open. He will require advance notice for construction, inspections, and regulatory changes that affect storefronts, and build a true one stop system for permits, licensing, and compliance.

Oye will expand Main Street programs and corridor support in every ward, reform grant programs so public dollars support businesses and workers instead of only landlords, and grow flexible microgrants and technical assistance that small businesses can actually use for payroll, inventory, and operating costs. He will strengthen community lenders and access to fair credit so entrepreneurs are not pushed into predatory debt. Oye will also push for protections against abusive commercial leases, support affordable commercial space and shared retail models, and ensure District development deals prioritize local businesses in contracting and retail leasing. He will invest in the creative economy so artists, cultural spaces, and local makers can stay in the neighborhoods they helped build.

What Is Happening Now

Small businesses are struggling while subsidies, tax incentives, and public financing flow to large developers and corporations. Business owners are forced to deal with fragmented agencies, outdated systems, and slow or unclear guidance. Commercial rents keep rising, triple net leases shift risk onto tenants, and public investments often increase property values without protecting the businesses expected to stay. Construction projects disrupt corridors with little notice, and vacant storefronts sit empty while speculation is rewarded. Immigrant and Black owned businesses face language barriers, confusing applications, and unequal access to capital. Too many small businesses have closed not because they failed their communities, but because the District made it easier to support billion dollar developments than neighborhood businesses.

What Is Happening Now

DC’s budget is under real strain, not because residents are asking for too much, but because revenue is not keeping pace with the economy or with the responsibilities DC is required to carry. The District relies primarily on local property, income, and sales taxes, along with federal funds that make up about a quarter of total revenue. Unlike states, DC must fund both city and state level services, including Medicaid, unemployment insurance, and human services, while lacking full control over its own budget.

Congress can block DC laws, restrict how local funds are spent, and impose federal budget riders that deny the District revenue. One clear example is cannabis. DC voters legalized possession, but Congress still blocks the District from regulating and taxing recreational sales, denying millions in revenue that could be reinvested in communities harmed by the War on Drugs.

At the same time, DC’s tax code and development strategy continue to favor the wealthy. Capital gains, inherited wealth, and high value property remain lightly taxed, while working families carry a disproportionate share of the load. The District has increasingly relied on mechanisms like Opportunity Zones, Tax Increment Financing (TIFs), and long term bonding to spur development without clear accountability for results. Too often, these tools shift risk onto future taxpayers while delivering limited public benefit. Without change, revenue will continue to lag behind economic growth, putting housing, education, health care, and basic services at risk.

What DC Deserves

DC residents deserve a revenue system that grows with the economy and is based on ability to pay. That means raising enough revenue to fund core services, absorb federal shocks, and meet real needs in housing, health care, education, food access, and public safety.

DC also deserves a budget that puts people before giveaways. Public dollars should meet basic needs, not subsidize luxury developments, stadiums, or speculative projects that primarily benefit a few investors while burdening future residents. The routine use of tax abatements, Opportunity Zones, TIFs, and public debt to finance high end development drains resources from neighborhoods that need them most and locks in obligations that limit future choices.

Oye Fights For

Oye supports increasing taxes on households with very high incomes, extreme wealth, and highly profitable corporations, consistent with the Just Recovery DC vision for a racially equitable tax system.

He supports raising the capital gains tax rate, which overwhelmingly benefits the top one percent. He supports a millionaires tax by increasing income tax rates on earnings above $500,000, with higher rates on incomes over $1 million. He will strengthen the mansion tax on multi-million dollar homes and lower the estate tax exemption so inherited wealth contributes to shared public needs.

Oye supports closing loopholes and decoupling DC from harmful federal tax changes that would drain hundreds of millions of dollars from the District while benefiting the wealthy. He supports implementing a land value or split rate tax, particularly near Metro stations, to fund WMATA and reinvest transit driven value back into the system. He supports restructuring business taxes through a Business Activity Tax so large corporations operating in DC contribute fairly, while rejecting ineffective corporate tax giveaways.

Progressive revenue must be paired with relief. Oye supports enforcing the $1,000 local child tax credit, including for families using Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITINs), strengthening the DC Earned Income Tax Credit, and expanding and automating the Schedule H property tax credit so relief reaches residents who need it most.

What Is Happening Now

DC’s transportation system too often prioritizes cars and out of town commuters over residents who rely on buses, walking, biking, and transit every day. Bus and rail riders, who are disproportionately Black, low income, disabled, and seniors, face long wait times, unreliable service, unsafe stations and stops, and streets designed for speeding instead of safety. Seniors and people with disabilities struggle to reach medical appointments, wellness centers, and community programs. Residents East of the River experience the longest commutes and the most neglected infrastructure, while highway expansion continues to drain resources from buses and transit. Metro faces chronic funding instability because Maryland and Virginia have failed to match DC’s commitment. Fare enforcement and traffic enforcement remain centered in policing rather than safety, leading to unnecessary arrests, harassment of riders and operators, and continued dangerous driving that slows buses and puts lives at risk.

What DC Residents Deserve

DC residents deserve an affordable, reliable, and fully accessible transportation system that connects people to work, school, health care, and community life. Buses and trains should be fast, frequent, and safe, with protected lanes and stations that are well lit, staffed, and accessible to people with disabilities. Transit should be affordable or free so cost is never a barrier to opportunity or safety. Eliminating fares improves public safety by reducing harassment of bus operators, ending arrests for fare evasion, and increasing ridership and visibility across the system. Streets should be designed for safety so pedestrians, cyclists, and transit riders can travel without fear. DC also deserves stable, dedicated funding for Metro and buses so service is not threatened by annual budget fights or regional inaction. Transportation should reduce pollution, improve public health, and serve the people who live in the District first.

Oye Fights For

Oye will fight for a transit first District that centers residents, seniors, families, and people with disabilities. He supports the DMV Moves regional funding plan, which would invest $500 to $600 million annually beginning in FY28 with sustainable growth, and will push Maryland and Virginia to meet DC’s commitment so Metro has reliable long term funding. He will work to reduce and eliminate fares, expand bus priority corridors, and invest in safer stations, bus stops, sidewalks, lighting, and accessibility improvements across the District. Oye supports moving traffic and fare enforcement out of MPD into a civilian safety system and will oppose highway expansion that undermines transit reliability and neighborhood safety.

What Is Happening Now

Homelessness in DC remains widespread and undercounted. While the 2025 Point In Time Count showed a reported decrease, it captures only one night and excludes thousands of families doubled up with relatives, people living in cars, students experiencing homelessness, and individuals cycling through programs like Rapid Rehousing. DC Public Schools identified more than 8,000 students experiencing homelessness in a single school year, far more than federal counts reflect.

Recent reductions were driven largely by short term programs, not permanent housing. At the same time, chronic homelessness increased, transition age youth homelessness remains among the highest in the region, and the District provided no new vouchers for single adults this year. Families are being exited from Rapid Rehousing with no permanent housing options, putting them at risk of returning to shelters or the street.

Federal interference and aggressive encampment clearings have made homelessness more dangerous and less visible, disrupting outreach and breaking trust. Proposed budget cuts to homeless services, prevention programs, and housing assistance threaten to reverse progress. People are told help exists, yet remain unhoused for months or years because the system is underfunded, fragmented, and slow.

What DC Residents Deserve

DC residents deserve a system that treats homelessness as a housing and health issue, not a crime or a public relations problem. People deserve shelter, outreach, and services that lead quickly and reliably to permanent housing. Families deserve stability so temporary programs do not end in displacement. Single adults deserve real pathways off the street. Youth deserve early intervention so homelessness does not become chronic. Residents deserve transparency, accountability, and a system that works at the pace of human need.

Ending homelessness requires Housing First, paired with health care, income, and support. It also requires prevention through eviction protection, legal support, and emergency assistance, and sustained investment instead of short term fixes that collapse when budgets tighten.

Oye Fights For

Oye believes ending homelessness is possible and urgent. He will partner closely with The Way Home Campaign and organizations led by people with lived experience to advance a true Housing First approach. That means fully funding permanent supportive housing, LRSP vouchers, and bridge housing so people can move directly from the street to stable homes, and extending Rapid Rehousing so families are not exited into homelessness.

Oye will fix system delays that keep people unhoused even after resources are allocated. He will require public reporting on voucher lease up timelines, inspections, and agency bottlenecks, with clear accountability when cases stall. Housing cannot sit unused while people sleep outside.

He will strengthen landlord participation by guaranteeing faster payments, reducing administrative barriers, and expanding partnerships with mission driven housing providers. He will fully fund street outreach, day centers, storage, and shelter repairs, including accommodations for people with pets.

Oye will oppose encampment sweeps and criminalization that destabilize people and undermine housing efforts. He will stop the pipeline into homelessness by fully funding ERAP, pairing it with a right to counsel, protecting renters during temporary crises, raising wages, expanding social housing, and supporting expungement and reentry so people can stabilize. 

What Is Happening Now

Too many DC residents live in neighborhoods where highly processed food is cheap and abundant while fresh, healthy food is harder to find and harder to afford. Wards 7 and 8 face some of the highest rates of food insecurity, diabetes, high blood pressure, and shortened life expectancy in the District. Communities are saturated with junk food that drives chronic disease, while grocery access, nutrition education, and reliable transportation to healthy food remain uneven. Food policy has focused too narrowly on attracting grocery stores without addressing affordability, education, or the systems that shape what people can realistically buy and eat. The result is preventable illness instead of prevention.

What DC Residents Deserve

DC residents deserve healthy, affordable food in every ward. That includes full service grocery stores, small footprint markets, cooperatives, and community based food systems that make fresh food the default choice. Residents deserve practical, culturally responsive nutrition education delivered through trusted systems like health care providers, home visiting programs, and schools. Families deserve food environments that reduce diabetes, heart disease, and hypertension. Food policy should support health and dignity, not profit driven systems that harm communities.

Oye Fights For

As a pharmacist and former ANC Commissioner in Ward 8, Oye has seen how food access and food quality directly affect health outcomes. He will fight for a public health centered food system that prevents chronic disease and expands real access to healthy food.

Oye will invest in the DMV Good Food Fund to strengthen mission aligned local food businesses and expand healthy food retail in underserved neighborhoods. He will convene a multi-sector task force focused on food access in Wards 7 and 8 to identify barriers and deliver clear, community driven solutions. He will support small footprint grocery stores, food cooperatives, corner store conversions, and community gardens through targeted funding and technical assistance.

Oye will integrate nutrition education into health care, home visiting, and community programs so residents have the tools to make informed choices. He will prioritize transportation investments that make it easier to reach grocery stores and food markets. He will push to limit the spread of unhealthy, highly processed food in communities facing the highest rates of diet related disease.

Oye will work with local and federal partners to strengthen farm to table supply chains, connecting DC residents directly with regional farms, reducing waste, lowering costs, and decreasing reliance on corporate food systems that prioritize shelf life over health. He will also support banning the sale of foie gras produced through force feeding, aligning DC food policy with public health, ethics, and animal welfare.Item description

What Is Happening Now

Art and culture shape how communities connect, solve problems, and act together. In DC, the creative economy generates nearly $16 billion a year and supports thousands of jobs, yet access to funding, space, and decision making power remains unequal. Artists and cultural workers rooted in Black, brown, immigrant, disabled, and low income communities face persistent barriers to fair pay, stable venues, and long term sustainability.

Arts education and cultural programming are under-resourced in public schools, transit systems, and neighborhood spaces, especially in communities facing the greatest disinvestment. At the same time, federal attacks on arts funding and cultural institutions threaten creative freedom and economic stability.

DC’s cultural heritage, including Go-Go music and neighborhood based traditions, is often celebrated in name while being displaced in practice. Despite strong evidence that arts participation improves mental health, reduces isolation, strengthens civic engagement, and supports longer, healthier lives, public investment still treats art as optional instead of essential to public health, education, and community safety.

What DC Deserves

DC deserves an arts and cultural ecosystem that strengthens the social fabric of the city. Art creates shared spaces, shared stories, and shared identity, conditions that make collective action possible and allow public policy to work. Cultural equity must guide arts policy so funding, leadership, and access reflect the full diversity of the District.

Residents deserve fully funded schools where arts education supports learning, well being, and civic engagement. Neighborhoods deserve cultural investment that activates public space, supports small businesses, and builds trust across differences. Seniors deserve access to cultural spaces that support mental and physical health. Artists deserve fair compensation, affordable workspaces, and protection from displacement.

DC’s cultural heritage must be actively preserved, including Go-Go and the many traditions that define the District. As the home of the Smithsonian and major national cultural institutions, DC should lead in building partnerships that expand access and opportunity for local artists and communities.

Oye Fights For

Oye is a peacebuilder who has spent his career using art, culture, and dialogue to reduce isolation, build trust, and bring people together across divides. He understands that art is not decoration. It is the infrastructure for democracy.

As a Councilmember, Oye will advance cultural equity by ensuring arts funding and policy reflect the full diversity of DC. He will support fair pay, stable funding, and affordable space for artists and cultural workers, especially those rooted in historically excluded communities. He will protect neighborhood based cultural institutions and cultural heritage from displacement.

Oye will strengthen arts education in public schools and invest in creative programming in transit, libraries, parks, and public spaces to improve daily environments and strengthen community connection. He will support partnerships between local artists, schools, health systems, and cultural institutions, including the Smithsonian, to expand access and opportunity.

He will defend creative freedom and push back against efforts to censor or defund the arts. Oye will treat art as a core peacebuilding tool that strengthens social cohesion, supports public health, fuels the local economy, and creates the conditions for people to act together.

What Is Happening Now

DC residents do not trust the system because too many major decisions are made behind closed doors and too many failures have no consequences. The District has passed strong progressive and equity focused laws, including the Racial Equity Achieves Results Act (REACH Act), but too often those laws are treated as symbolic rather than binding. Racial equity analysis is frequently done after budgets, contracts, and development deals are already shaped, limiting its impact and insulating decision makers from accountability.

DC also has a troubling track record of oversight failures and questionable contracting. From sole source contracts to opaque development subsidies, Opportunity Zones, Tax Increment Financing, and no bid agreements have too often benefited developers and insiders without clear evidence that low income and working class residents are seeing real gains. Repeated ethics and corruption scandals involving senior officials and Council leadership have reinforced the perception that government protects insiders first.

The COVID response exposed the human cost of this dysfunction. Slow, fragmented action and poor coordination led to deadly failures at city run facilities and delayed responses in the hardest hit Black communities. When government is not built around serving people in normal times, it collapses in moments of crisis.

What DC Deserves

DC residents deserve a government where equity is enforced, not optional. Laws like the REACH Act should shape decisions from the very beginning, with clear standards, timelines, and public reporting. Equity must be measurable, visible, and tied to outcomes, not reduced to checkboxes or after the fact justifications.

Residents deserve transparency and accountability for public subsidies. If Opportunity Zones or Tax Increment Financing are used, the public should be able to see who benefits, what community gains are delivered, and whether promises are kept. Public money should meet public needs like housing, food access, health care, education, and local economic stability, not subsidize unchecked development without accountability.

Trust is built when government tells the truth, releases data, corrects failures, and listens to communities before deals are signed.

Oye Fights For

Oye has earned public trust as a former ANC Commissioner and as a US Representative elected districtwide. He is known for showing up, listening, and representing DC residents with integrity, not protecting insiders or cutting backroom deals. He will bring that same energy and accountability to a local government that too often falls short.

Oye supports the REACH Act and will fight to strengthen it by requiring racial equity impact assessments early in the legislative and budget process and tying agency leadership evaluations and funding decisions to measurable equity outcomes. He will push for clear, plain language public reporting so residents can see how equity is actually shaping policy.

Oye will fight for strong oversight of Opportunity Zones and Tax Increment Financing, including transparency requirements, community benefit reporting, and safeguards to prevent displacement and corporate abuse. Public subsidies must directly benefit the people who live in those communities.

What Is Happening Now

Every DC resident is a ratepayer, and nearly every ratepayer feels squeezed. Electricity, gas, and water bills continue rising while accountability falls short. Nearly a quarter of households carry utility debt, and delivery fees and infrastructure surcharges increase regardless of how much energy or water people actually use.

Pepco and Washington Gas operate as regulated monopolies that guarantee profits to shareholders while residents absorb the cost. DC Water, though publicly owned, still relies heavily on rate increases tied to capital expansion that strain working families across the District. When utilities violate the public trust, consequences are limited. Pepco undercredited Solar For All customers by more than $800,000 in violation of DC law and faced no meaningful penalties.

At the same time, regulators approved long term fossil gas investments that lock residents into higher bills despite the District’s commitment to carbon neutrality by 2050. The current system rewards expansion and guaranteed returns rather than affordability, reliability, or public health, leaving ratepayers treated as revenue streams instead of residents whose safety depends on essential services.

What DC Deserves

Utilities are essential infrastructure, and access to energy and water must be treated as a public good. No family in the District should lose electricity, heat, or water because they cannot afford rising bills. Shutoffs create public health risks, destabilize housing, and deepen inequality. As a healthcare professional, Oye understands that utility loss means spoiled medication, unsafe temperatures, and worsening chronic illness.

District residents deserve affordable, clean, and reliable systems governed in the public interest rather than driven by shareholder profit targets. The District deserves a permanent ban on shutoffs for inability to pay, meaningful debt relief, and protections that keep families safely housed. Regulation should reward reliability, affordability, and climate progress, not infrastructure expansion alone.

DC deserves Public Service Commissioners that answer to ratepayers and operate with full transparency. If monopoly utilities continue placing profits over people, the District deserves a serious and democratic pathway toward public power, where residents have ownership, oversight, and a voice in shaping the systems they depend on every day.

Oye Fights For

Oye fights to center affordability, transparency, and democratic accountability in the District’s utility system while building a shared movement around energy as a public good. As a Councilmember, he will strengthen shutoff protections and expand utility debt relief so no household loses essential services during financial hardship.

Oye will require affordability and public health impact reviews before any rate increase is approved by the Public Service Commission and push for real enforcement when utilities violate District law so corporations cannot shift the cost of misconduct onto residents. Oye will demand transparency in utility planning, spending, and rate setting so residents understand how decisions are made and who benefits.

Oye supports freezing expansion of new fossil gas infrastructure, accelerating building electrification that lowers long term costs, and expanding rooftop and community solar with priority investment in Wards 7 and 8 where energy burdens are highest. He will also advance a serious evaluation of public power to increase local control, reinvest revenue into communities, and ensure energy policy lowers bills, improves health, and strengthens resilience across the District.

What is Happening Now

Animals in the District are living in a fragmented, reactive system. Tree canopy is shrinking in many neighborhoods. Air quality and river pollution harm wildlife just as they harm people. Habitat is squeezed by development, and when problems arise, the response is often to kill first and coordinate later.

Rat management still relies heavily on poison, even though DC Health has made clear that most rodent problems stem from poor waste management. Those poisons do not stay contained. They move up the food chain, harming hawks, owls, foxes, and pets. Meanwhile, trash overflows, broken bins go unreplaced, and gaps in buildings allow populations to grow.

Companion animals face their own barriers. Veterinary care is increasingly expensive. Excessive pet fees and restrictive housing policies force families into impossible choices. Humane law enforcement responds to cruelty cases, but prevention and coordination across agencies remain weak.

At the same time, factory farming drives climate pollution, and the District is debating humane food policies, including full implementation of the 25 percent Green Food law and whether to ban foie gras produced through force-feeding.

What DC Deserves

The District deserves a comprehensive animal policy rooted in science, prevention, and compassion.

Eliminating access to food and shelter reduces rat reproduction and reduces reliance on poison. That means prioritizing containerization, sanitation enforcement, compost access, structural repairs, and public education in coordination with DC Health and the Department of Public Works.

Animals in the District, including the rats, deserve clean air, protected rivers, healthy tree canopy, and preserved habitat. Rock Creek Park, Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens, and the Anacostia and Potomac rivers make DC one of the most biodiverse urban areas in the country. Our official bird, the Wood Thrush, along with migratory birds, hawks, eagles, and pollinators, depend on responsible land use, less pollution, and a stable climate.

Families deserve affordable veterinary care, pet-inclusive housing, protection from excessive pet fees, and strong humane law enforcement.

Oye Fights For

As a Councilmember, Oye will fight to shift the District away from poison-first rodent control and toward sanitation-first prevention. Working with DC Health’s Rodent and Vector Control Division, the Department of Public Works, DOEE, and the Food Protection Program, Oye will push to ensure sanitation failures are addressed quickly, consistently, and transparently.

He will fight to phase out second-generation anticoagulant rodenticides, strengthen containerization and compost infrastructure, and require clear public reporting on 311 response times, enforcement actions, and repeat violations. If agencies promise coordination, residents should be able to see the data and measure the results.

He will fight to strengthen humane law enforcement, advance the DC Animal Care and Control Omnibus Act, and ensure that Brandywine Valley SPCA and the Humane Rescue Alliance have the tools and funding needed to prevent cruelty, not just respond after harm occurs. He will expand access to affordable veterinary care and spay and neuter services so cost is never a barrier to responsible ownership.

Oye will push for pet-friendly housing reforms that reduce excessive fees, prevent discriminatory breed restrictions, and help families stay housed with their animals. And he will fight to fully implement the Green Food law, expand plant-forward public meals in District institutions, and ban foie gras produced through force-feeding.