An affordable housing fund that was created two years ago to provide homes for the poor and the working class in Baltimore is instead being used to demolish old public housing units before there are firm plans to replace them.
The Housing Authority of Baltimore City is using a "significant majority" of the $59 million fund to tear down 15 public housing sites across the city, said Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano. He defended using the money to demolish more than 1,500 housing units, saying the sites are being prepared for redevelopment.
But critics say that the new housing is years away, if it materializes at all, and that the loss of housing units is inexcusable when 20,000 households are on a city waiting list for housing and specific redevelopment plans are lacking.
FOR THE RECORD - A Page 1 photo caption in yesterday's editions of The Sun inaccurately described the living situation of Bronita Neal, a former resident of the Somerset Courts public housing complex. City housing officials said she has been relocated.
THE SUN REGRETS THE ERROR.
For instance, the Housing Authority is using $4 million from the affordable housing fund to demolish the 257-unit Somerset Courts in East Baltimore. But there is no plan for what will eventually replace it. This week, the authority held its first planning meeting on the project, beginning a process that will take years.
"If we're doing demolition on properties where the city doesn't have a plan for it, it's almost like it's a waste of the money," said City Councilman Kenneth N. Harris Sr. "For us to demolish a property for $2 million or $3 million, and it sits there for a couple of years while we're trying to figure out what to do, it defeats the purpose of why we created the trust fund in the first place."
The fund was created in 2005 as part of a deal struck by then-Mayor Martin O'Malley and then-City Council President Sheila Dixon to win support for a city-owned hotel adjacent to the Baltimore Convention Center. Several council members, including Harris and Helen L. Holton, voted for the hotel only after they were assured of the $59 million housing fund.
They say they expected the money to be used to help people buy homes, to renovate housing and to prepare sites for development of new housing. They didn't expect properties to be razed without plans to rebuild.
"We have a lot of things that need to be demolished, but that affordable housing trust fund was not designed just to clear sites for what might be possible," Holton said. "That fund was created to support and augment affordable housing through a planned process."
Legislation that created the fund says it should be used for essentially three purposes:
