This post was written by Hatchet reporter Andrew Goudsward.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser took to the stage of the Lincoln Theatre on Tuesday night to deliver her first State of the District address, outlining her plan for the next four years, titled the “Path to the Middle Class.”

Bowser, who was sworn in for her first term in January, described the achievements of her first months in office, then focused her address on economic opportunity, education and public safety. She said the city was “strong and growing strong,” but said there was “room to improve” on issues like income inequality, education and public transportation.

“We face in our city historic levels of economic inequality with tragic rates of homelessness. Too many of our residents can’t afford to live in their own neighborhoods,” she said.

Bowser announced a ban on government employee travel to Indiana in protest of the state’s controversial “religious freedom law,” which critics say allows businesses to discriminate against the LGBT community.

“We won’t stand by while other cities discriminate,” she said.

Bowser pledged to invest $100 million in public housing and vowed to end family homelessness in D.C. by 2018.

Outside the theater, a small group of demonstrators protested the displacement of low-income residents from public housing, waving signs that read “Development not Displacement” and “Black Homes Matter” and yelling “this is the real state of the District.”

Bowser also called D.C. public schools the fastest improving city school system in the U.S., but added that too many minority students are falling behind national standards.

“They aren’t failing themselves,” Bower said. “We’re failing them.”

She announced that the city would use $15 million to create more programs for middle school students and an additional $32 million for D.C. public and charter schools.

Bowser said an internal review found that more than half of the city’s ambulances were out of service, emergency personnel weren’t properly trained how to use equipment and “too many emergency calls were going unanswered.”

She also said all Metropolitan Police Department officers will begin wearing body cameras within the next 18 months.

Left out of Bowser’s speech was any mention of marijuana, which was legalized in D.C. in February.

The loudest applause of the night came when Bower said “we believe that taxation without representation is fundamentally undemocratic,” a reference to the District’s lack of voting representative in Congress.