Department Of Housing

Edmund W. Lubinski, a retired appraiser who worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, died of pneumonia April 10 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Lutherville resident was 93. Mr. Lubinski was born in Baltimore, the son of Polish immigrants who owned and operated grocery stores on Linwood Avenue and later Elmora Avenue. Mr. Lubinski was raised near Patterson Park and graduated in 1931 from Loyola High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Loyola College in 1935.

So much for transparency in Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration. Mr. CityStat cum StateStat professes a love for data but shrouds the truth with the same gusto with which he bares his biceps in sleeveless T-shirts. Take the planned move of the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) from Anne Arundel County to Prince George's County. Discussions surrounding the change have been going on for over a year and earlier this month became almost final with the selection of a developer and location.

An article in yesterday's editions incorrectly reported that Baltimore's Department of Housing and Community Development approved plans for a commercial blood collection center in Highlandtown. The agency has not given final approval.The Sun regrets the errors.

Baltimore should privatize trash collection, cease sending fire trucks and engines to medical calls and consider extracting property taxes from nonprofits, such as hospitals and schools, according to a comprehensive analysis of city government presented today to Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake. The report, prepared by a 150-member volunteer transition committee, is particularly critical of the Department of Housing and Community Development — which "appears to lack a clear and coherent vision for revitalizing ... neighborhoods," and calls for an audit and management review of the Recreation and Parks Department.

Harold R. Perry resigned this week as deputy commissioner of the city Department of Housing and Community Development after six years on the job.He was responsible for housing and building inspections, development of new neighborhood housing, community services, and administration of state and federal grants.Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke said Perry will not be replaced for now.Pub Date: 8/29/96

The Schmoke administration has received a $392,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to help finance construction of 28 houses for low-income residents near Round and Spelman roads in the Cherry Hill section of Baltimore. The project is the second in Baltimore financed under the Nehemiah program.

An article Sunday about the condemned Riverdale Apartments in Essex-Middle River incorrectly described the status of the property. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has foreclosed on half of the complex; Chemical Bank, now part of Chase Manhattan Bank, holds a mortgage on the other half and has not foreclosed.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 9/11/97

Faced with dwindling federal aid and an aging housing stock, several Baltimore-area housing authorities are pursuing a unique partnership that would allow them to issue $60 million in bonds to make sorely needed improvements at public housing neighborhoods. Roofs would be replaced, central air conditioning installed and housing units made accessible to the disabled with revenue from the bond package, which officials hope to issue this spring. The housing authorities of Baltimore City, Annapolis, Anne Arundel County and Howard County are among the local agencies that hope to partner with the state Department of Housing and Community Development.

A story in Friday's Maryland section misrepresented the conditions of a settlement between the Baltimore Housing Authority and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development over a 1994 audit of the authority. Instead of requiring the Housing Authority to return disputed excess spending to HUD, the federal agency forced the authority to transfer $343,400 in earnings into an authority account to improve city public housing.The Sun regrets the errors.Pub Date: 1/12/99

An article in the Jan. 12 Real Estate section incorrectly stated benefits to buyers of homes in the Department of Housing and Urban Development inventory.Through the end of February, buyers who plan to live in homes insured by the Federal Housing Administration pay just a $500 down payment. Owner-occupants or investors can get a $300 bonus if the sale goes to settlement within 30 days of HUD's accepting a contract.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 1/19/97

The owner of a hard-to-heat 1923 Northeast Baltimore home became curious when she heard the news reports of weatherization assistance being offered through a federal economic stimulus recovery act. Beth Steinbach never raises her thermostat above 65 degrees in her Lauraville frame house. As the mother of four young children, she was looking for ways to get her winter utility bill below the $260 a month she was paying. So she called City Hall. A team of municipal draft busters spent several hours at her Southern Avenue home Tuesday.

Most of the homes in Dundalk's historic "Ships" district date to the 1920s, when they provided housing for steel mill workers at Sparrows Point. A poster from that era hanging in a Dundalk office features a drawing of Uncle Sam assuring buyers that the homes were "scientifically and substantially built." Until recently, the compact neighborhood of well-maintained stucco townhouses and duplexes off Dundalk Avenue was attracting new families and investors. But the national foreclosure crisis has hit those short, narrow streets hard, with at least eight vacant homes in various stages of foreclosure.

THE PROBLEM -- The cornice near the roof of an abandoned rowhouse was loose and threatening to fall off. THE BACKSTORY -- Nora Giles says she couldn't walk on her own street. For three decades, she has lived on Rankin Place in the Poppleton community of West Baltimore. A rowhouse on the end of the three-house group, 1228 Rankin, has sat empty for about 15 years, said Giles and her brother, James Smith. The previous owner took care of it, Giles said. But after he died, people began dumping trash in the backyard and drug dealers used it to hide their stash.

It is a continual lament of affordable-housing advocates: Not only are there too few apartments for low- and moderate-income people, but every year some deteriorate or disappear - converted from subsidized to market-rate rentals. The state Department of Housing and Community Development has $75 million it intends to put up next year to attack that leak. The department, which announced the effort yesterday at the Governor's Annual Housing Conference at the Baltimore Convention Center, said the money represents nearly half of the tax-exempt bonds it can issue next year for affordable rental housing.

Highlighting a series of lapses in a federal program administered through the housing department, a long-awaited city audit released yesterday documented problems with missing and incomplete files, improperly recorded information and a failure to meet a federal requirement that could result in a revenue loss of nearly $2 million. The fiscal 2006 audit of the Home Investment Partnerships Program, administered through the city's Department of Housing and Community Development, was presented to top city officials yesterday morning after more than a year of delays in obtaining the information.

Edmund W. Lubinski, a retired appraiser who worked for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, died of pneumonia April 10 at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The Lutherville resident was 93. Mr. Lubinski was born in Baltimore, the son of Polish immigrants who owned and operated grocery stores on Linwood Avenue and later Elmora Avenue. Mr. Lubinski was raised near Patterson Park and graduated in 1931 from Loyola High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in liberal arts from Loyola College in 1935.

William J. Toohey, who was appointed Howard County's public information officer last month, said yesterday that he had resigned to return to his former post of director of public information for the Baltimore Department of Housing and Community Development.Mr. Toohey, 45, said he would resume his $45,000-a-year job in Baltimore Dec. 3. He left the city job Oct. 1 when he was named to the $49,166-a-year county post by County Executive Elizabeth Bobo.He said the incoming executive, Charles I. Ecker, "could not guarantee a position for me."

The Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development has financed $29.7 million of mortgage money at 7.25 percent interest for residents of Baltimore and 20 of the state's 23 counties. The On-Behalf-Of program began Monday. Each jurisdiction has income limits, maximum acquisition costs and geographic eligibility requirements. New construction is not eligible. For more information and lists of participating lenders and local eligibility requirements, call 410-514-7501 or 800-638-7781.

The county has officially killed a planned development in Font Hill for moderate-income families. The development, Centennial Gardens, had provoked a firestorm of protest, including opposition from County Executive Ken Ulman. Ulman directed the Department of Housing and Community Development "to close this project" and sell the property back to the developer, Old Town Construction LLC.

NEW ORLEANS -- To some, the four sprawling three-story brick complexes may not look like real estate worth fighting over. But at a time when inhabitable housing of any kind is at a premium here, the fate of New Orleans' four largest public housing complexes - St. Bernard, C.J. Peete, B.W. Cooper and Lafitte - is at the center of another battle in the city's turbulent efforts to reshape its future. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Housing Authority of New Orleans have approved plans to demolish these complexes, landmarks in their neighborhoods, and replace them with lower-density apartment clusters for mixed-income residents.