Housing plan is boon to city, not boondoggle
Thank you for giving front-page coverage to the Housing Authority of Baltimore City's program of buying and renovating rental housing for low-income residents ("30 low-income rent units cost city $7 million," March 20). It is rare that positive, constructive programs such as this one receive such prominent treatment.
It is a pity that the story appeared under a headline that implies that this program is a costly boondoggle - a position unsupported in the story except by a statement from a representative of the Heritage Foundation. In my book, Heritage Foundation condemnation amounts to an endorsement.
The facts in the article do suggest that the program effectively creates opportunity for low-income citizens without a negative impact on middle-income neighborhoods; that it's vastly more efficient than other failed solutions for housing the poor; and that it's a positive step toward breaking up the concentrations of poverty that cost taxpayers even greater sums for drug addiction, crime, educational failure and chronic health problems, among other blights.
Don Akchin
Baltimore
The writer is director of membership development for the Enterprise Foundation.
City pays too much for public housing
I was astonished to read the article about Baltimore paying $7 million to purchase and renovate 30 rental units for scattered-site subsidized housing ("30 low-income rent units cost city $7 million," March 20).
In a similar project, my real estate development company acquired almost as many houses from the same federal agency in the past four years. Now renovated and completely up to code, they are rented mostly to subsidized housing tenants. Our renovation costs were less than $800,000.
Maybe I'm not clear about the cost differentials, but is this fuzzy math or what?
Robert H. Paul
Baltimore
Huge housing bill as city budget burns
I am a Baltimore firefighter, and in the recent days I've witnessed the mayor say he is going to cut the Fire Department budget by more than 5 percent, which would mean closing four of the city's fire companies each day, and read that police officers will be laid off because of budget cuts ("Budget plan cuts city jobs, services," March 18). I've also seen the suspension of a firefighters union president for voicing his dissatisfaction over budget cuts ("City fire officer's union president suspended after criticizing chief," March 20) and watched the city's school system fiasco.
