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Stay up to date on the latest news from Councilmember Henderson.

DC Braces for Funding Crisis as the Downtown Area Struggles Financially

Council member Christina Henderson, at-large independent and a former D.C. Public Schools employee, said some expenditures will be difficult to trim. She noted that the police department’s 2023 overspending resulted from overtime pay for an understaffed force and the State Superintendent for Education’s overspending came from increased special education needs as the city’s immigrant population grows. “The public school system is one agency that’s required to serve children, no matter how many show up after we budget for it,” Ms. Henderson said. “With the migrant crisis, we’re a very transient city.” On the other hand, she said, she has worked to “level expectations” among constituents for other funding requests and the council must adjust to reduced revenue “and be responsible about it.”
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The Debate Over Secure DC is Finally Over. Will Any of It Matter if Cops and Prosecutors Don’t Do Their Jobs?

“Are misdemeanors not important enough to them to prosecute?” wondered At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson.
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The Collins Council Report: Right to Hospital/Home Instruction, Restaurant Service Fees, and the Opioid Emergency

The D.C. Council unanimously approved the Extended Students’ Right to Home or Hospital Instruction Amendment Act on Tuesday during the second reading of the bill. Earlier this year, D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson (I-At large) told The Informer that the original law around home/hospital instruction, as interpreted by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, excluded students who were parents. She said that failure to move ahead with the legislative change could impede student parents’ efforts to continue their education before and after childbirth.
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D.C. Housing Authority director says agency’s troubles worse than imagined

“You’re laying a lot on this recovery plan,” council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) observed during the hearing, in what appeared to be a friendly chiding, after Pettigrew mentioned it several times.
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DYRS Budget Oversight Hearing Sheds Light on Treatment, Staffing Gaps

[Councilmember Christina] Henderson, a Recreation, Libraries, and Youth Affairs committee member who also chairs the council’s Committee on Health, told The Informer that she’s had conversations with Department of Behavioral Health officials seeking similar resources for non-committed youth. Their RFP, as she recalled, called for providers located within a 50-mile radius of the District.
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D.C. Council Likely To Pass Bill To Help Teen Parents Stay In School

The D.C. Council is considering a bill that would allow expecting and new parents in public schools to continue their education at home or in the hospital. “Whether or not a student who is pregnant gets to continue their education shouldn’t be based on the feelings or the empathy of a school leader,” she says. The bill is an amendment to the Students’ Right to Home or Hospital Instruction Act of 2020. That law, which went into effect in the 2022-2023 school year, required every local education agency (LEA) to create an at-home or at-hospital instruction program for students with health conditions that required them to miss school for ten or more days. Under the current law, a “health condition” is defined as a “physical or mental illness, injury, or impairment that prevents a student from participating in the day-to-day activities typically expected during school attendance.” Henderson’s bill would amend the definition of a “health condition” to explicitly include pre-birth complications, childbirth, and postpartum recovery.
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D.C. officials scramble to spend as emergency order on opioids lapses

Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large), chair of the council’s health committee and a member of the abatement commission, had pushed the council to keep the order in place for at least another month so the group would have more space to deliberate. “It’s unfortunate because I believe there’s more we could have gotten done on the opioid side that we didn’t have time for,” Henderson said. “Everybody was giving warning that it wasn’t enough time.”
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Out of Ink: Washington Post Reduced Daily Editorials in Another Turn Away from Local Coverage

“The Washington Post editorial board used to be a driver of the local conversation,” says At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson, noting that the board frequently ignores important local topics including major legislation about safer streets that was just passed by the D.C. Council, amendments to the tipped wage bill, and student truancy. “It’s a bit disheartening,” she adds.
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Loose Lips Links, Feb. 14

D.C. officials are working to renew Medicaid registrations for the more than 283,000 residents that rely on the federal program for health insurance, but service providers worry that a lack of communication between District agencies is hindering the process. At-Large Councilmember Christina Henderson, the health committee chair, is also raising questions about the city’s online system for managing these registrations.
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During Medicaid Redetermination, Local Service Providers Push for Smoother Application Process

Throughout the Medicaid redetermination process, D.C. Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) has asked questions about the effectiveness of District Direct. Navigating the online application process, she said, is leaving Medicaid recipients in a state of limbo that threatens their coverage. During a joint oversight roundtable that the Council Committee on Health and the Committee on Housing conducted in December, Henderson, chair of the Committee on Health, questioned DHS and DHCF officials about the causes of application processing delays and how they are rectifying them. She later told The Informer that getting both agencies in the same room, to an extent, rectified discrepancies about processing gaps. Henderson said she continues to hear from constituents whose benefits had been terminated while DHCF processes their Medicaid renewal paperwork. WIth what she estimated as 20,000 applications still pending, Henderson told The Informer that she worries if DHCF and DHS will be able to facilitate Medicaid redetermination without federal interference.
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Where Are The School Nurses?

A 2017 law mandating a full-time nurse in every school was never funded nor implemented. But a 1987 law remains on the books requiring 20 hours of care from a nurse in each District school. “Whether it was 20 hours a week or whether it was 40 hours a week, the District of Columbia has never reached 100 percent of every school having full time nurse, RN or LPN coverage,” said Councilmember Christina Henderson (At-Large – D), Chair of the DC Council Committee on Health.
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D.C. Council prepares to take first vote on sweeping anti-crime legislation

Numerous members have stopped short of promising residents a sea change should the legislation pass, believing it should not be seen as a substitute for a comprehensive violence reduction plan. As Council member Christina Henderson (I-At Large) noted, “a lot of things in this bill are, how do you deal with accountability and consequences after a crime has already been committed?” And accountability, she noted, also still depends on prosecutors and judges under federal control. Still, she added, “while there’s not a single event or moment that led to where we are, nor is there going to be one bill that leads us out — we’re at this point willing to try any and all things to try to reverse course here.”
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