D.C. made a mess of housing the poor. Mayor’s latest move won’t help.

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Finally, Eboni Harris has a home where she’s not afraid to pull back her children’s covers and see mice scurry out.

Finally, she has enough space that her children don’t have to crowd into one bedroom while she sleeps in the living room.

Finally, her family feels safe.

On Dec. 1, after years of complaining to city and housing officials about her family’s living conditions, and months after I wrote about her family’s frustrations, Harris and her three children were allowed to move from a one-bedroom, rodent-infested unit into a three-bedroom, rodent-free unit. Finally, they got some relief.

D.C. mom begs to move after finding mice in food and children’s bed

But while their situation has improved, Harris remains concerned for other families who depend on the D.C. Housing Authority and, because of the agency’s dysfunction, continue to live in deplorable conditions. Even after she learned rodent droppings were exacerbating her son’s asthma, her family couldn’t move without approval, because they receive a rent subsidy from the Housing Authority.

There are so many people, Harris told me on Friday, “still waiting on and relying on the Housing Authority for a safe, clean environment to call home.”

Those who rely on the Housing Authority, or work with families who do, know the stakes that are involved in turning around the troubled agency. They know that every day it takes the agency to make substantial improvements means another day that low-income D.C. residents, including elderly and disabled people, have to wait to get their housing needs met.

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They know there is no time to waste on political posturing.

There is no question that drastic, purposeful action is needed to address the many deficiencies of the city’s Housing Authority. A U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report found that the agency failed to provide “decent, safe, and sanitary” public housing. But a recent move by D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) aimed at changing the governing board has advocates for public housing residents worried — and that should raise our collective concern.

Bowser and Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) have proposed legislation that calls for dissolving the Housing Authority’s 13-member board and replacing it with seven people who would be appointed by the mayor. The change stands to give the mayor more control over the agency, which is not a part of her administration, and remove from the board one of the most vocal critics of the city’s efforts.

“We see this as a temporary board that is meant to focus on the deficiencies outlined in the HUD report,” Bowser has said of the legislation. “As well as laying out a blueprint for how to advance the authority and its properties for housing for D.C. residents.”

That measure was proposed Thursday, and the D.C. Council is expected to vote on it Tuesday.

That short timeline left advocates scrambling on Friday to examine the legislation and figure out how it might affect the city’s most vulnerable residents. I spoke with people at several organizations that work with residents who depend on the Housing Authority, and they all expressed alarm at the mayor’s proposal and the speed at which the council was being asked to approve it.

“I think everyone agrees reform is necessary,” Sunny Desai, a managing attorney for Legal Counsel for the Elderly said. “It’s just we want to make sure we take the right steps, because ultimately, if we take the wrong steps, it’s the low-income residents, the seniors we represent, who are going to be harmed the most. The solutions need to be fully vetted, and not rushed.”

One of the organization’s main concerns with the proposed legislation, he said, is that it calls for reducing resident representation on the board and eliminating the position held by Bill Slover, who holds the seat chosen by housing…