Government subsidies for nearly 10,000 homes in the District will expire by 2010, confronting the city with the daunting task of finding housing for thousands of its poorest residents, according to a private study released Wednesday.

The threat to housing for the poor will continue to grow, according to the study by the Urban Institute, and by 2014 almost 70 percent of the city’s subsidized housing units will lose existing affordability restrictions.

Peter Tatian, who wrote the report, said some owners of housing with subsidies may renew those agreements, but that the city is way behind in the planning necessary to secure that transition.

“This is a constant challenge for the city to continue to preserve these units,” he said Wednesday. “It’s always more efficient and affordable to preserve what we have than to start from scratch.”

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Historically, a substantial proportion of these contracts are renewed but for shorter periods of time, meaning the number of units to worry about “just gets bigger,” Tatian said.

D.C. has about 35,000 federally and locally subsidized housing units, nearly a third of which are in Ward 8.

Michael Kelly, executive director of the D.C. Housing Authority, said he saw the findings as a “call to arms” about the federal government’s continuing failure to adequately fund public housing.

“Their comment is a sage one,” he said. “Just because the restrictions are expiring, doesn’t mean the housing will be lost. However the fact that we have those valuable units on our radar screen allows us to tactically look at ways to maintain them.”

Kelly’s agency doles out vouchers to keep affected families from becoming homeless. The Department of Housing and Community Development funds housing counseling groups to help tenants purchase apartment buildings at risk of becoming unaffordable.

The Urban Institute, though, urges the government to do more, particularly prioritizing their activities toward buildings at most risk.

dlevitz@dcexaminer.com