“A DC That Works for All of Us”

​

Dyana Forester firmly believes that the District of Columbia needs a viable future rooted in the belief that all DC residents can thrive. She is a Washingtonian, mother, labor and community organizer, former ANC Commissioner, and government executive. Dyana has spent her career building the social, political, and sweat equity and capital needed to effect change, advocating for a DC that works for all of us, and addressing the challenges that working-class DC families face daily. The vision that works for all of us means:
 

• Housing affordability, 

• Support for small businesses and job growth, 

• Strong schools and safe communities, and

• Protecting the Home Rule Act of 1973. 

 

Working families need a seat at the table, not just the well-connected, not just the wealthy, not just those who have always had a seat at the table, and that's why Dyana Forester is running for DC Council At-Large because she believes DC should work for all of us.  

​​

​

HOUSING & MAKING DC MORE AFFORDABLE

​

Dyana knows the housing crisis personally, she moved from apartment to apartment with her daughters before finding stability at the Ella Jo Baker Co-Op, which gave her the foundation to become a homeowner in Ward 7. Affordability isn't a policy abstraction for her; it's the fight of her life.

​

• A proven record on housing: From organizing neighbors to win the fully affordable redevelopment to serving as Labor Representative on the DC Housing Authority Board, Dyana has fought developer pressure and demanded accountability for public housing residents at every level.

• Protecting tenants: On the Council, she will strengthen the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), expand deeply affordable housing options, and protect the workers, caregivers, teachers, and small business owners who make DC run from being priced out.

• She knows how the system works — and where it fails: As tenant, co-op member, community organizer, ANC Commissioner, and Housing Authority Commissioner, Dyana has navigated every layer of DC's housing system and will fight every day to make it work for working families.
   

A DC that works for all of us means a DC where working families can afford to live

in the Nation's Capital. In Washington, DC, the word "affordability" has become

synonymous with poverty, when the reality is that the gap between the haves

and have-nots is getting wider, and Dyana's focus is to restore balance through

sustainable economic development. Dyana watched family members and close

friends be priced out of DC while she, too, moved from apartment to apartment

with her daughters until arriving at the Ella Jo Baker Co-Op. The Co-Op gave Dyana

the stability to save and become a homeowner in Ward 7. To Dyana, the fight for

affordability is personal on every level.

​

As an ANC Commissioner, Dyana stood resolute in organizing with neighbors to

push for the Park Morton Equity Plan, a long-contested Ward 5 redevelopment,

resulting in a five-story,142-unit, fully affordable multifamily building, a direct win

against developer pressure to dilute affordability commitments. Appointed by the

Metro Washington Labor Council AFL-CIO to the DC Housing Authority Board of

Commissioners as the Board Labor Representative, Dyana demanded transparency

and accountability on behalf of public housing residents. Her appointment provided autonomy from the Mayor's Administration on contested votes, allowing her to remain firmly on the side of working families and tenants,  not the administration, not the developers.

 

As an At-Large Councilmember, Dyana will protect tenants, strengthen the Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Act (TOPA), expand deeply affordable housing options, and fight to keep longtime DC residents, creative professionals, service workers, teachers, caregivers, small business owners, and the people who make this city run, in the city they call home. Tenant, co-op member, community organizer, ANC Commissioner, and Housing Authority Commissioner: Dyana's housing record spans every role she has held.

​

She knows how these systems work, and she knows exactly where they fail working families. Every DC resident deserves a stable home, and on the Council, Dyana will fight every day to make that real.

​​

 

SUPPORTING SMALL BUSINESS AND JOB GROWTH

​​

Dyana has spent her career at the intersection of labor and economic development, working alongside unions, negotiating on behalf of government, and building workforce pathways for young people and returning citizens. She knows fair wages and thriving businesses aren't competing goals; they reinforce each other.
 

• Supporting small and local businesses: Dyana will streamline permitting and licensing scaled to actual small business needs, reduce unnecessary administrative burdens, and create commercial rent-stability incentives to keep local operators anchored in their neighborhoods.

• Connecting residents to good jobs: She will pair wage growth with workforce training and apprenticeships, and build on-the-job career pathways that connect DC residents to jobs in their own communities.

• Diversifying DC's economy: Dyana will push for investment in innovation, university partnerships, technology, and creative industries — and for repurposing vacant office and commercial space into active economic hubs that work for workers, owners, and residents alike.
   

A DC that works for all of us is one where working people have access to good jobs, and where the small businesses that employ them and anchor our neighborhoods have a real shot at success. 

Dyana has spent her career at the intersection of labor and economic development. She has worked alongside unions, negotiated on behalf of government, and led workforce programs that created real pathways for young people and returning citizens. She knows that fair wages and thriving businesses are not competing goals, they are mutually reinforcing ones, and she will bring that understanding to every economic policy debate on the DC City Council.

​

Local and small businesses are the backbone of DC’s neighborhoods and the primary source of jobs for working-class residents. They thrive when regulation is smart, efficient, and scaled to their actual size and capacity, not designed for large enterprises and applied uniformly to everyone else. Dyana will streamline permitting and licensing for truly small and emerging businesses, reduce unnecessary administrative burdens, pair wage growth with workforce training and apprenticeships, and create on-the-job career pathways that connect DC residents to jobs in their own communities. Economic growth should benefit the workers who generate it.

​

Looking ahead, DC must diversify its economy by investing in innovation, university partnerships, technology, creative industries, hospitality, and by repurposing vacant office and commercial space into active economic hubs. Dyana will push for fast-tracked permitting for micro and neighborhood businesses, commercial rent-stability incentives for local operators, and a small business and labor advisory Council to ensure that workers, owners, and residents have a real voice in shaping DC’s economic direction. The ecosystem supports small businesses, allowing businesses to be competitive, workers to be treated fairly, families to be more stable, neighborhoods to be stronger, and DC to work for all of us.

​

STRONG SCHOOLS AND SAFE COMMUNITIES

​

Dyana believes every child deserves a quality education and a safe community — no matter their ZIP code or ward. Her vision connects strong schools and public safety as inseparable goals, rooted in her own experience growing up in DC and fighting for working-class families.

​

• Community Schools as the framework: Dyana supports the Community Schools model — integrating wraparound supports, expanded learning, family engagement, and collaborative leadership — to address both academic needs and the out-of-school barriers that hold students back.

• Schools as a violence prevention strategy: Evidence shows that when young people have stable supports, career pathways, and economic hope, community violence declines. Dyana's work leading pre-apprenticeship programs for youth and returning citizens proves this approach works.

• Equitable funding and strong schools: On the Council, she'll champion needs-based DCPS funding, expand community schools across all eight wards, and ensure families, educators, and students have a real voice.

• Public safety rooted in community: As the daughter of a retired police officer who has lost loved ones to violence, Dyana will fight for local MPD hiring, de-escalation and mental health crisis training, sustained violence prevention investment, and strong police oversight.
   

A DC that works for all of us means that every child, regardless of their ZIP code, family income, or the ward they grow up in, has access to a quality education and a safe community. 

Dyana Forester grew up in Southeast DC and attended school in Upper Northwest, and she saw firsthand the deep disparities that have long defined DC Public Schools. Serving on Alice Deal Middle School’s Local School Restructuring Team,  Dyana fought to preserve out-of-boundary feeder patterns that gave working-class families across the city access to stronger schools. When Chancellor Michelle Rhee proposed school closures, Dyana organized parents and educators city-wide to fight back. Through Dyana’s eyes, quality public schools are a working-class issue.

​

Aligned with the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) and its vision of schools as centers of community life, Dyana believes the Community Schools model is the right framework for DC. 

The four pillars of community schools are integrated student supports (including health care, behavioral health, and wraparound services), expanded and enriched learning time and opportunities, active family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership and practices, which address not just academic needs but the out-of-school barriers that prevent children in less resourced communities from thriving. 

A student who is housing-insecure, food-insecure, or navigating family trauma cannot simply leave those realities at the classroom door. Community schools meet students where they are, so they can reach where they are going.

​

The Community Schools model is among the most powerful and evidence-backed tools DC has for both workforce preparedness and youth violence reduction, and these goals are inseparable. When schools are resourced to offer pre-apprenticeship tracks, career pathways, expanded learning time, and strong wraparound supports, young people gain real skills, real futures, and real reasons to choose a different path. 

Research consistently shows that when youth have access to stable supports, meaningful opportunities, and economic hope, community violence declines. As President of the Community Services Agency, Dyana oversaw pre-apprenticeship programs that proved giving young people and returning citizens a pathway to the workforce reduces the conditions that drive crime. 

​

On the Council, she will champion equitable, needs-based DCPS funding, expand the community schools model across all eight wards, strengthen mental health and special education resources, and ensure families, educators, and students have a genuine voice in shaping their schools. 

​

As the daughter of a retired police officer who has lost loved ones to violence, public safety is personal for Dyana. Dyana will fight for local MPD hiring, de-escalation, and mental health crisis training; sustained investment in violence prevention; and strong oversight to ensure DC’s police serve and reflect the communities they protect.

​​

​

PROTECTING DC HOME RULE

​

Dyana believes a DC that works for all of us is a DC that governs itself. Federal interference in local laws, budget autonomy, and immigration enforcement aren't abstract threats — they fall hardest on working-class residents and communities of color.
 

• Statehood and home rule: Dyana is a longtime statehood advocate who will use the At-Large seat to defend DC's autonomy, push back against federal overreach, and keep the fight for full Congressional representation alive and urgent.

• Protecting immigrant communities: As the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, Dyana will advocate for legislation limiting DC's cooperation with unauthorized ICE operations, support sanctuary policies, and expand funding for immigration legal defense.

• A unified Council voice: She will ensure the Council speaks assertively when the federal government tries to override DC voters — because when DC cannot govern itself, working-class residents pay the price first.

​

A DC that works for all of us requires a DC that actually gets to govern itself. As a Washingtonian, Dyana Forester has been a longtime advocate for statehood and the right of District residents, including its working-class majority, to make decisions about their own city. Under the current federal administration, the stakes have never been clearer. Federal interference in local laws, threats to our budget autonomy, and the weaponization of the National Guard against District residents are not hypothetical dangers, they are the lived consequences of DC's legal inability to fully govern itself. And when DC cannot govern itself, it is working-class residents and communities of color who bear the cost first and most.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

Protecting home rule also means protecting every community that makes DC whole, including the immigrant families who are essential to the working-class fabric of every ward in this city. As the daughter of a Mexican immigrant, Dyana understands this personally. She has stood up to protect DACA and Temporary Protected Status, and she is committed to ensuring that local law enforcement does not become an arm of federal immigration enforcement. She will advocate for legislation limiting DC's cooperation with ICE operations not authorized by locally elected leaders, support sanctuary policies that keep families together, and expand funding for immigration legal defense, because immigrant workers and families are part of the DC we are all fighting to protect.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The At-Large seat exists to represent the full city, all eight wards, every resident, every working family. Dyana will use that seat to defend DC's autonomy at every turn, hold federal agencies accountable when they overstep, and keep DC's fight for full statehood and Congressional representation alive and urgent. She will ensure the Council speaks with a unified, assertive voice when Washington tries to override the will of DC voters. A DC that works for all of us is a DC that governs itself, and Dyana will never stop fighting for that.

​

​

​

​