Department Of Housing

Rep. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has scheduled a public meeting FTC tomorrow at Aberdeen High School on the settlement of an American Civil Liberties Union housing bias suit that will enable hundreds of black families to move from Baltimore's public housing to the suburbs.Karl Aumann, director of the Republican congressman's district office, said he expects the 7 p.m. meeting to attract a tenth of the approximately 1,500 who packed a session in Dundalk three months ago to voice opposition to the settlement of the suit against the city and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The City Council's budget committee begins a week of hearings today to discuss financial details of Mayor Martin O'Malley's proposed $2.2 billion budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. City budget officials at noon will begin the presentations with an overview of a plan that would boost spending by 3.2 percent from the current fiscal year if approved by the council later this month. Representatives from the fire and health departments, the state's attorney's office and Enoch Pratt Free Library will follow with reports on their individual budgets at City Hall's Curran Conference Room.

BALTIMOREANS should be relieved the Department of Housing and Urban Development has retroactively absolved city Housing Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III of what appeared to be a clear conflict-of-interest violation. That Mr. Henson didn't consult HUD for a ruling until after the fact, however, is disturbing. It smacks of past criticism of the commissioner's shoot-first, ask-questions-later approach.A company owned by Mr. Henson's sister was subcontracted to do interior decorating in the Lafayette Courts housing development, despite HUD rules barring contracts between housing administrators and companies owned by themselves or members of their immediate family.

Bill Toohey, the spokesman for the Baltimore Department of Housing and Community Development and the city housing authority, has resigned to become press secretary for Maryland Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski.The 47-year-old Mr. Toohey has been the spokesman for the department and the authority -- city and federal housing agencies that are intertwined by federal funds -- since April 1988.Mr. Toohey left his position briefly in October 1990 to become press secretary for Howard County Executive Elizabeth Bobo but returned in December 1990 after Ms. Bobo was unexpectedly defeated by Charles I. Ecker.

Four years after the city's housing authority was roundly criticized as inefficient and considered "troubled" by the federal government, the agency has received encouraging news about its progress from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The Housing Authority of Baltimore City, which administers Section 8 housing vouchers to more than 13,000 families, has been removed from the federal agency's watch list and has become a "high performer," according to a letter sent to the authority last month.

Betty Hyatt has spent 20 years seeing that the decaying housing in her East Baltimore neighborhood of Washington Hill is replaced by new housing for homeowners.About 800 new housing units later, she is just one project away from seeing her job completed.The city Board of Estimates yesterday authorized the Department of Housing and Community Development to apply for a federal Urban Development Action Grant worth slightly more than $1 million to finish the job.The grant would help finance a $4.5 million housing project expected to provide 66 new low- and middle-income housing units around the 1400 block of E. Baltimore St.More than half of the housing would be two- and three-bedroom condominium units with the rest being single-family townhouses.

The Housing Authority of Baltimore City once again has approached the federal government for money to demolish five of the six high-rise buildings at the Lafayette Courts public housing project and replace them with town homes.Department of Housing and Community Development Commissioner Daniel P. Henson III said yesterday that the housing authority Thursday hand-delivered an application to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development seeking $50 million to help fund the project, which would cost $115 million.

They looked like any other group of tourists roaming Baltimore, emerging from two large buses last week toting cameras, dressed in shorts, tennis shoes and hats to block the sun.But the 60 housing specialists, most from U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development offices around the country -- using Baltimore as a classroom for the do's and don'ts of affordable housing development -- got a glimpse of the city few visitors see.Their tour guides and...

With the last piece of funding in place, Union Bridge is ready to move forward with a $2.5 million project to beautify its Main Street with patterned crosswalks, Victorian-era street lamps and a town square. "We have a beautiful downtown area, but there's not many businesses in it. We decided we needed to go a little further to make Union Bridge a more positive place for businesses and residents," said James Schumacher, a consultant for the northwest Carroll County town. When completed in 2004, downtown Union Bridge will be more cohesive - matching crosswalks and sidewalks, new street lamps and parking meters - than the existing streetscape, which features utility wires crisscrossing the road, uneven sidewalks and empty storefronts.

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.