Addicts And Alcoholics

Bel Air officials say they have nothing against group homes for drug addicts and alcoholics -- they just want to treat them the same as any other multifamily home.But lawyers for a company that runs five such group homes in Bel Air say they are different, and insist the difference gives them protection under federal housing law.Those clashing interpretations are at the center of a dispute that erupted last week over group homes in the Harford County town, which is debating legislation that would restrict group homes to areas zoned for high density.

William Cope Moyers seemed to have it all. He was the son of Bill Moyers, the White House wunderkind under Lyndon B. Johnson who went on to a stellar career in journalism that is still continuing on your local PBS station. The younger Moyers followed his father into that profession and the skids were greased. He zoomed up the ladder, working in his father's native state at a newspaper in Dallas. He excelled at Newsday on Long Island, where his father had once been publisher. He worked in his father's TV documentary production company.

Several county churches that rent public schools on Sundays expect to face financial hardship when the school system raises their rent byas much as 10 percent this fall.At a recent meeting, the school board approved continued use by the churches, but representatives of some churches expressed doubt whether they would be able to afford the new rates, says Bill Peacock, of the school system's planning and construction department.Right now, the average church pays $211.50 to rent a county school for three hours on Sunday.

The Johns Hopkins University is close to buying the Stafford Apartments in Mount Vernon, a school official says, and by autumn the elegant 11-story building should be converted from low-income housing to student dorms. The change has been in the works since 2002, when Maryland's congressional leaders helped void a federal provision restricting the tower -- overlooking one of Baltimore's most picturesque squares -- to poor residents. But Hopkins had not said publicly it would buy the building from Denver-based AIMCO Inc. Nor did it specify when the 96 units would be ready for students, mostly from Hopkins-affiliated Peabody Institute a block away.

WASHINGTON -- The House overwhelmingly passed legislation yesterday to overhaul the Social Security Administration, a move advocates said is needed to restore public confidence in the agency and protect its policies from political forces.The bill, which passed 413 to 0, would remove Social Security from the Department of Health and Human Services and make it an independent agency. Supporters said that change would give the Woodlawn-based agency a higher profile and insulate it against political changes in the federal government.

Federal officials oppose the proposed conversion of a crime-troubled public housing high-rise in the heart of Baltimore's cultural district into market-rate housing that Mount Vernon neighborhood leaders believe would help revive the struggling community. Mayor Martin O'Malley urged U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development officials yesterday to be more flexible and allow the conversion of Stafford Towers at 716 Washington Place, a landmark, 106-year-old former hotel that houses 96 residents in subsidized apartments.

The owner of the crime-troubled Stafford Apartments in Mount Vernon says it will outline plans for the building within 90 days, and may lay out how to transform it from federally subsidized housing into student residences. "We're moving quickly to evaluate what to do," said David Robertson, head of affordable housing at AIMCO, a Denver real estate company that owns the building at 716 Washington Place. "This is a unique property in a great location and deserves to be upgraded." Robertson's comments were the first from AIMCO since Congress voided federal restrictions that would have required the 11-story tower near the Washington Monument to remain subsidized housing for 14 more years.

Despite months of neighborhood protests, a Towson-area church has agreed to rent its rectory to a group of recovering substance abusers.The eight-member vestry of St. Margaret's Episcopal Church voted unanimously to allow eight former drug addicts and alcoholics to live in the four-bedroom house on church grounds near Joppa Road and Perring Parkway. The decision was announced Sunday during church services."I think it's a terrific outreach program," vestry member Ruth C. Franklin said of Oxford House, the national organization that sponsors residences for recovering substance abusers.

Treatment centers part of the solution When I read "Group homes stalled" (March 16), I was saddened to see we still don't get it. It appears the city will spend a lot of its scarce dollars to fight against a partial solution to Baltimore's biggest problem - drug addiction. This makes no sense. I have worked in the field of substance abuse treatment for the past 37 years, and I know that treatment is part of the solution, not part of the problem. I suspect many former residents of Baltimore moved away because of violent crime, not because there were too many treatment programs or group homes in their neighborhood.

FOR NEARLY a decade, Baltimore has been getting a pass on its discriminatory and illegal zoning laws that govern substance abuse treatment centers and group homes for recovering alcoholics and drug addicts. Finally, the city has seen fit to address this problem. The administration of Mayor Martin O'Malley has wisely recognized that reforms are considerably overdue. But more to the point, it has realized that maintaining the status quo would land the city in court, trying to defend an indefensible city ordinance.