Baltimore Housing

Antonio Fulgham can barely read or write. The 21-year-old from West Baltimore has been deemed "mentally retarded," with bleak job prospects. He blames his plight on lead poisoning he suffered as a toddler while growing up amid flaking paint in two Baltimore public housing units. Last fall a city jury agreed, and ordered the Housing Authority of Baltimore City to pay him damages that amount to $1.27 million. Although nothing can undo his brain damage, Fulgham says the money will mean "a better change in my life.

A man surrendered to police Sunday morning after barricading himself inside a house in the 100 block of South Mount St., police reported. The man, whose identity has not been released, created the barricade about 3 a.m. after a dispute with a woman, police said. He was reported to have access to firearms, but police did not say whether any were recovered when he surrendered a short time later. — Michael Dresser

A house fire in Eastern Baltimore County that left one woman severely burned Wednesday was ruled an arson, a fire department spokeswoman said. The 47-year-old was taken to the burn unit at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and treated for serious burns, said spokeswoman Elise Armacost. Firefighters were called at about 10:45 a.m. to the 7900 block of E. Baltimore St. for the one-alarm fire. The woman had been inside the bedroom when she was injured, Armacost said. The investigation continues.

The Census Bureau reported recently what many people have long suspected: Over the last decade, the growth of Maryland's population has largely been driven by Hispanics, who increasingly are settling in suburban areas of the state. The data don't say how many of them are immigrants, but it's a good bet that many are. At the same time, the report noted, the population of Baltimore City, which has been declining for decades, fell by another 30,000 residents since 2001 — more than half again as much as city officials had expected.

Gauging the trajectory of the real estate market in the Baltimore region has become a hyper-local exercise — it depends on precisely where you live. While a handful of communities roared back so much last year that the number of home sales actually topped the market peak of 2005, many others are still free-falling years after the housing bubble popped, raising the possibility that the promise of revitalization during boom times truly was a mirage, a Baltimore Sun analysis found.

Officially, House Republicans retreated to Baltimore this week to hash out their legislative agenda: repealing health care reform, cutting government spending and fulfilling the other campaign promises that helped to sweep them into the majority. But they still had to eat, and their first two meals Friday provided much food for thought for the 2012 presidential race. Breakfast served up former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, while lunch was a buffet of GOP governors: Haley Barbour of Mississippi, Rick Perry of Texas and Bob McDonnell of Virginia.

On Christmas Eve, I spent some time in three of the addresses featured in a new book chronicling landmark houses of worship in old Baltimore. That night I made stops at Saints Ignatius and Alphonsus and First and Franklin Presbyterian churches. I heard joyous choirs and inhaled clouds of incense. I also considered these settings, the rooms of worship, the sacred altars where the faithful have been gathering for the centuries. There was no escaping the spells cast by the architecture that night.

Memo to the mayor of Baltimore and City Council members: The housing bust and the recession have made significantly more homes in the surrounding counties affordable to first-time home-buyers. That means the city could be losing its long-standing edge in affordability. So you'd better do something to reduce the city's ridiculously high property tax rate — and fast — or lose even more potential customers to the suburbs over the next few years. The numbers — and that conclusion — come from Jody Landers, executive vice president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors, one-time city councilman, and longtime civic activist.

With grown 29-year-old twins out of the house, empty nesters Noreen and Eric Victor found little need for their five-bedroom Colonial home with a pool on a half-acre in Prince William County in Northern Virginia. "We wanted the city," Noreen Victor said, as sure of herself now as she was in 2005. The couple read a newspaper article on the neighborhood of Fells Point and decided to check out all that Baltimore had to offer. Their exploration led them to Canton and a newly built block of four rowhouses just off of the urban hum of O'Donnell Square.