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PR26-0375 • 2025

Food & Friends Property Tax Exemption Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2025

Food & Friends Property Tax Exemption Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2025

Taxes
Enacted

This bill passed the Legislature and reached final enactment based on the latest official action.

Sponsor
Mendelson
Last action
2025-11-21
Official status
Approved
Effective date
Not listed

Plain English Breakdown

The official source material does not provide specific details about the implementation or monitoring of the property tax exemption.

Food & Friends Property Tax Exemption

This resolution declares an emergency to provide a property tax exemption for Food & Friends, a non-profit organization that delivers medically tailored meals and groceries to District of Columbia residents with serious illnesses.

What This Bill Does

  • Declares the need to amend Chapter 10 of Title 47 in the District of Columbia Official Code to give a property tax exemption to Food & Friends for their property located at 219 Riggs Road, NE.
  • States that Food & Friends has been serving District residents since 1988 and provides medically tailored meals and groceries.
  • Notes that without this tax exemption, Food & Friends’s ability to operate would be seriously jeopardized, affecting thousands of District residents who rely on their services.
  • Requires the resolution to be adopted after a single reading due to emergency circumstances.

Who It Names or Affects

  • Food & Friends
  • District of Columbia residents who receive meals and groceries from Food & Friends

Terms To Know

Property Tax Exemption
A situation where a property owner does not have to pay all or part of the taxes on their property.
Emergency Declaration
A statement that declares an urgent need for immediate action, often used when regular procedures would take too long.

Limits and Unknowns

  • The resolution only affects one specific non-profit organization, Food & Friends.
  • It does not provide details on how the tax exemption will be implemented or monitored.

Bill History

  1. 2025-11-21 Council of the District of Columbia LIMS

    Resolution R26-0247, Effective from Nov 04, 2025 Published in DC Register Vol 72 and Page 012941

  2. 2025-11-04 Council of the District of Columbia LIMS

    Retained by the Council

  3. 2025-11-04 Council of the District of Columbia LIMS

    Legislative Meeting

  4. 2025-11-04 Council of the District of Columbia LIMS

    Approved with Resolution Number R26-0247

  5. 2025-11-03 Council of the District of Columbia LIMS

    PR26-0375 Introduced by Chairman Mendelson at Office of the Secretary

Official Summary Text

Food & Friends Property Tax Exemption Emergency Declaration Resolution of 2025

Current Bill Text

Read the full stored bill text 
ENROLLED ORIGINAL

1

A RESOLUTION

26-247

IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

November 4, 2025

To declare the existence of an emergency with respect to the need to amend Chapter 10 of Title
47 of the District of Columbia Official Code to provide a property tax exemption for the
property situated on Lot 0005, Square 3766 at 219 Riggs Road, NE.

RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, That this
resolution may be cited as the “Food & Friends Property Tax Exemption Emergency Declaration
Resolution of 2025”.

Sec. 2. (a) There exists an immediate need to amend the tax status of property located at
219 Riggs Road, NE, to ensure that the nearly 40-year-old non-profit Food & Friends can
continue to serve District residents and can expand its services through an expansion of their
operations.
(b) Food & Friends has made its home in the District since 1988 and was created to serve
District residents who have HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other serious illnesses that limit their ability
to provide nourishment for themselves.
(c) Food & Friends is currently planning an expansion to allow it to stay in the city for
many years into the future, and to continue to provide home-delivered meals and groceries
throughout the District that are medically tailored to clients’ needs.
(d) In 2024, Food & Friends delivered 1,054,585 meals to 3,039 District residents -- the
most ever in its history.
(e) The property tax exemption that Food & Friends obtained in 2006 plays a vital role in
allowing the organization to provide many District of Columbia residents with important
nutrition services on which they have come to rely. Without the exemption, Food & Friends’s
ability to operate would be seriously jeopardized and thousands of District residents would be
negatively impacted -- particularly in light of widespread food insecurity and uncertainty related
to federal nutrition programs.
(f) Emergency legislation is necessary to support Food & Friends’s long-term
commitment to the District and to those residents who are unable to secure nutritious meals for
themselves in any other way.
ENROLLED ORIGINAL

2

Sec. 3. The Council of the District of Columbia finds that the circumstances enumerated
in section 2 constitute emergency circumstances making it necessary that the Food & Friends
Property Tax Exemption Emergency Amendment Act of 2025 be adopted after a single reading.

Sec. 4. This resolution shall take effect immediately.