Baltimore Housing

Baltimore Housing officials issued a warning Friday about fraudulent fliers stating that the waiting list for the Housing Choice voucher program would reopen on August 22. The list for the program, commonly known as Section 8, is closed, according to a news release. The circulating fliers suggest people should bring information such as pay stubs, Social Security cards and proof of income, but the claims are not true. For more information about the waiting list, residents should call 443-984-2200.

Baltimore's housing office has disbanded its security unit, laying off seven sworn police officers, the agency said Thursday. The duties of the Lease Enforcement Unit - which investigates criminal activity in public housing to determine if a resident has violated his or her lease - will be assumed by housing's Inspector General's office, which investigates fraud, waste and abuse, said Cheron Porter, a spokeswoman for Baltimore Housing. "The Housing Authority of Baltimore City budget has suffered cuts generally over the past couple of years and with sequestration, more cuts could be on the horizon," Porter said in an email.

Baltimore Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano met last month with an influential state lawmaker to discuss more than $8 million in unpaid court-ordered judgments against the city's housing authority, which have resulted from lead-paint poisoning lawsuits brought by former public housing residents. But Del. Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg said Graziano did not cover new ground at the June 5 meeting. “There was nothing new that I was told,” said Rosenberg, a Baltimore Democrat who is vice chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

An off-duty Baltimore police officer gave himself up late Tuesday after barricading himself in a home with a toddler in a six-hour standoff that began when he fatally shot a woman, authorities said. Officer James Smith, a 20-year veteran and member of the motorcycle unit, was taken into custody before 9:30 p.m. and was charged with first-degree murder on Wednesday morning, among other charges, according to court records. Police had evacuated residents in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood from their homes during the incident.

Rough economy notwithstanding, more Baltimore homes were getting face lifts at the end of the last decade than the start. That's one of the bits of intel from the newest Vital Signs , an ongoing effort by the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance at the University of Baltimore to shine a light on how the city is changing. Statistics range from crime rates to employment rates . (City residents -- pick your neighborhood from the Vital Signs map , and you can see where things stand near you.)

A boy who came home from school and found his mother dead was then bound with belts and duct tape by her alleged killer, whom police arrested last week. Edward Ford, 36, was charged with first-degree murder in the death of 44-year-old Cheryl Thomas, who was discovered dead in her home in the McCulloh Homes housing project near downtown Thursday afternoon. According to police, Thomas' son returned from school and found her in her bedroom, handcuffed behind her back and with her feet bound.

HAVRE DE GRACE -- Know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em, says the song. Know when to walk away, and know when to run. That's a pretty good rule, not just for poker but for business and for life. In plain unmusical prose, it means being prepared to cut your losses when necessary.Sometimes this means obeying your brain when your heart is screeching at you to stop. Not everyone can do this. In farming there are plenty of examples of those who can't -- third-generation dairymen who just can't imagine life without cows, say, or people with thin-soiled farms who stick with corn year after year as the yields steadily shrink.

The Housing Authority of Baltimore City Police Force is being evaluated by a national association of law enforcement agencies as part of the authority's efforts to retain its accreditation. The Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies sent a team of assessors during the weekend to examine the housing police's operations, management, policies and support services for three days. The housing authority's force, which polices Baltimore's public housing, was accredited for a standard three-year period by CALEA in 1997, and is seeking reaccreditation under an extension granted by the association.

The National Association of Realtors' chief economist told local real estate agents yesterday that he believes the Baltimore housing market has hit bottom and 2008 should be a better year - assuming buyers don't sit on the sidelines, anticipating major price drops. "This area will be very interesting to watch because there's very solid economic growth, but people aren't buying homes," said Lawrence Yun, the economist. He added: "Ten years from now, people will look back at 2008 and say, `Wow, that was a great time to become a homeowner.

Peel back the layers of water-stained wallboard and loose floor tiles, get down to the odorous core of the city's public housing scandal -- can we now officially call it that? -- and we find, if not corruption, at least incompetence. The mayor says the fast-track, no-bid process for granting repair contracts in shabby, city-owned houses was justified by an emergency in Baltimore's housing needs. "The housing situation [was] a public health threat to communities," the mayor said.Well, how did it get that way?

As Maryland Historical Society librarian Francis O'Neill described the winding route to reconstructing the history of Baltimore's homes, a small but eager crowd paid close attention. No one made for the exits, even as he laid new twists on old turns. "We're not Google," said his colleague, Eben Dennis. "There's not one place you can plug in a keyword and get a photo. " But for those willing to put in some effort, the society has almost a million pictures of buildings from the city and beyond.

  Baltimore City plans to serve 2 million free meals this summer to children who would otherwise have little to eat. Needy children often don't get enough to eat in the summer months when they are not in school to participate in the free lunch program. Under the city initiative, low-income children  under age 18 can get free breakfast, lunch and dinner at recreation centers, schools, churches, camps and other locations in the city. It is the second year of the porgram.

If you can find steamed crabs in Baltimore, consider yourself lucky. Bo Brooks in Canton has an outgoing voice message telling customers there aren't any crabs. A hostess confirmed the bad news. The crabs aren't coming in. The problem is on the supply side. The Maryland crab harvest doesn't begin until April 1, and the supply from the winter harvest from the Gulf of Mexico has dwindled. "This is the worst winter we've had in recent memory," said Dan Donnelly, general manager of Cantler's Riverside Inn in Annapolis, who said his suppliers simply don't have crabs to give him. "If they did, I'd be getting them," Donnelly said.

Calling all literati and English majors with decent paychecks: You have a chance to own a home once graced by F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. The Bolton Hill home where Fitzgerald lived during a stint during the 1930s and wrote "Tender Is the Night,"  just went on the market in an estate sale. The handsome rowhouse at 1307 Park Ave. has four bedrooms, four baths and 3,600 square feet of pure conversation starter. The ad on Estately boasts "gracious & elegant" living and "unadulterated" original details.

If you want a taste of the Gilded Age, just plunk down $450,000, the asking price for a Baltimore townhouse once owned by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The author who gave us "The Great Gatsby" and other classics lived in Towson and Baltimore while wife Zelda was being treated for her mental health problems. Now the four-bedroom townhouse at 1307 Park Avenue in Bolton Hill is up for sale. Here's what the University of Baltimore's Literary Heritage says about his time here: "In 1932, Fitzgerald brought [Zelda]

Kate Blom's glamorous old house is 125 years old this year and, not surprisingly, it is badly in need of repairs. The wood is rotting around the windows, the doors need replacing, the chimney brick work needs re-pointing and the floor in one room is worn and crumbling. So she is throwing a kind of "work party" this week, hoping her guests will pitch in and take on a job that's too big for just one woman. Kate Blom's house is the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and Botanic Gardens in Druid Hill Park, the last of five Victorian glass houses that once graced Baltimore's parks and offered peaceful respite to the city's residents.

THE CITY COUNCIL should use the Feb. 14 reconfirmation hearing of Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III as an occasion to thoroughly assess Baltimore's housing situation under the eight years of the Schmoke administration. And if it votes to give Mr. Henson another appointment, the council should establish clear performance goals for him to meet.Three years ago, when Mr. Henson was drafted by Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke to take over the troubled twin housing bureaucracies, the developer did so reluctantly.

Kenneth Strong, director of research for a nonprofit law center in Baltimore devoted to helping community organizations, started a new job with the city yesterday as director of the office of homeownership. Strong, who will try to encourage homeownership through loan programs and promotional efforts to persuade more people to live in the city, was one of five housing department hires announced during a news conference yesterday at City Hall. Other incoming housing officials introduced by the mayor yesterday included Douglass Austin, deputy commissioner for development; J. Gregory Love, deputy commissioner for housing and building code enforcement; Ruth Louie, assistant commissioner for community development; and Chris Shea, associate deputy director of planning and development.

Netflix today released a stylish trailer for "House of Cards," the Baltimore-made political thriller starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. The opening suggests that screenwriter Beau Willimon has successfully re-imagined the tricky form of address featured in the BBC original with the lead character talking directly to the audience at key moments. Spacey nails the technique and it seems perfectly apt for American politics in this trailer. Check it out. I love the answer given when one character asks what will happen if he doesn't play ball: "Then we'll cleave you from the herd and watch you die in the wilderness.

In spite of a slight seasonal drop off in the number of home sales last month, the median price for a Baltimore-area home sold during October was more than $10,000 higher than in the same month last year, according to data released Monday by an affiliate of the region's multiple-listing service. “All jurisdictions in the Baltimore metro area experienced price gains from this time last year, though the rate of growth has flattened,” said a statement from Rockville-based RealEstate Business Intelligence LLC. The median sales price in Baltimore and its five neighboring counties - Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard - last month was $229,900.