Housing Agency

ST. MICHAEL'S -- They gathered at the secluded Harbourtowne Gulf Resort and Conference Center in this Eastern Shore community.It was a 2 1/2-day retreat for 54 supervisors from the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, the quasi-public housing agency funded largely with federal funds.Housing officials said the $13,446 trip -- paid for by the agency -- was designed to lay out a strategy for implementing recommendations for the city's public housing communities.But Mayor-elect Martin O'Malley questioned the prudence of a lame-duck administrator taking his staff on such a getaway a month before he leaves the job."

U.S. housing officials have banned a Baltimore contractor and a key employee from working on federally funded projects for three years, because they flouted an earlier ban on the employee.The bans confirm temporary suspensions imposed April 2 on Botech Inc. and Timothy Lanocha, the employee, by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development because the company used Lanocha on city housing agency jobs while he was barred. When suspended, Botech was preparing to undertake an additional $1.5 million worth of work for the city housing agency.

Over the past 30 years, the federal government handed Baltimore millions of dollars to renovate 1,000 homes for scattered public housing.Now, the city is asking for permission to knock down most of those houses.The proposal by the city's Department of Housing and Community Development is outrageous to advocates for the city poor, who point to a waiting list for public housing that is 22,000 families long.Most absurd, these advocates say, is that at least 43 of the houses were renovated as part of the $5.5 million spent by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City on construction in the past six years.

U.S. housing officials have banned a Baltimore contractor from federally financed jobs because the firm flouted a similar ban on a key employee when it was working for Baltimore's housing agency.The action, made public yesterday, was taken against Botech Inc., which has been awarded nearly $4 million in housing agency work in the past three years.HUD also imposed a ban on Timothy Lanocha, the key employee who worked for Botech while he was under an earlier ban on federal work after acknowledging that he paid off Baltimore housing aides.

THE ANNAPOLIS HOUSING Authority hardly seems the center of political intrigue and secret agendas, but the smell of back-room deals and political payoffs is now wafting from some misguided personnel moves involving the agency's leadership.In early August, Annapolis Mayor Alfred A. Hopkins abruptly decided to remove Marita Carroll as chairwoman of the authority which oversees federally subsidized housing in the state capital. A former school teacher and community activist, Ms. Carroll was universally respected for her commitment to public service.

In another rebuke to the Baltimore Housing Authority, federal officials have stopped the agency from giving out contracts worth up to $100,000 without public bidding until they determine that there are adequate safeguards.The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ordered the agency last month to halt its new policy of setting a more liberal limit on nonpublic contracts, pending the outcome of a review sought by Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat.Federal housing auditors now have completed their inquiry into the housing agency's contracting practices but have yet to issue a final report on their findings.

Signaling a widening probe into possible conflicts of interest in the Baltimore housing department, the mayor and housing commissioner announced yesterday that they are reviewing the financial records of all city inspectors to see if they own slum properties.The announcement came two days after an article in The Sun detailed more than a hundred deficiencies in four of the 17 rental rowhouses owned by city housing inspection superintendent Henry John "Jack" Reed III, 55.Mr. Reed has been an employee of the Housing and Community Development Department for nearly three decades -- during a time when he was amassing a portfolio of decrepit properties in East Baltimore beset by faulty heating systems, flooded basements, leaky sewage pipes and rampant rat infestation.

A committee directed by County Council Chairman Vincent J. Gardina has decided that Baltimore County should have a housing code for the exterior of owner-occupied homes.The committee's recommendations will be forwarded to County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger III. Mr. Ruppersberger is on vacation and unavailable for comment.The 13-member committee agreed at a meeting Wednesday in Towson that enforcement should be done carefully with wide discretion for inspectors and relatively low daily fines for noncompliance.

CHICAGO -- The entire board of the Chicago Housing Authority has resigned, dumping the nation's second-largest housing agency -- and widely considered the most troubled -- in the lap of the federal government.The Department of Housing and Urban Development will take control of the city's 40,000 public housing units at 5 p.m. Tuesday in the largest-ever federal takeover of a housing agency."As we went around the country inspecting public housing, Chicago really stands out," Housing Secretary Henry G. Cisneros said yesterday.

Newport, R.I., is working with Rhode Island's housing agency and a private developer on a project of 30 one-family houses for first-time homebuyers of low to moderate income.Ground will be broken next month on the three-and-a-half-acre Beacon Street project, which should be completed within a year, said Bruce Bartlett, the city's director of Planning, Zoning and Development.While housing prices have fallen because of the recession, most still are too high for the majority of first-time buyers, he said.

For Trudy McFall, the impetus to be Annapolis' next mayor comes from a love for the city she has called home for nearly three decades and a desire to see it managed more professionally. McFall says that yearning to improve Annapolis is why she began raising money months ago. She recently became the first candidate to officially declare a run to be the city's next mayor and succeed Ellen O. Moyer, whose second term expires this year. "I have a great passion for Annapolis, and I just feel Annapolis could do things so much better on a variety of fronts," McFall said in an interview at her West Annapolis home.

Sixty Harford County residents lost their homes last month to mortgage foreclosure, bringing the total to 320 so far this year, officials said. With foreclosures up 13 percent this year, officials are acting to curb what they call a startling increase in defaults on mortgages. Harford County Executive David R. Craig said last week that residents facing foreclosure should seek help immediately from the county's housing agency. Counselors certified by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will work with families in crisis.

In his boldest move so far, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman announced yesterday that he's replaced the county's two top housing officials with his own choices. The firing of 15-year housing director Leonard S. Vaughan, 66, and 10-year deputy director Neil Gaffney, 60, mark Ulman's first moves to replace veteran county officials. Stacy Spann, 33, of Fulton, an assistant commissioner in Baltimore's housing agency since March 2004, who rose from his teen years as a resident of Howard's Guilford Gardens public housing to live in Maple Lawn, will take over Howard's agency Jan. 15, Ulman said.

Baltimore's public housing authority never should have been permitted to join a program to ease controls on its spending because officials failed to hold a required public hearing, a federal oversight agency has ruled in a scathing audit. Since July, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City has been part of a federal pilot program called Moving to Work, which allows 27 city and state housing agencies to waive restrictions that dictate how millions in federal housing money must be spent.

Craig to serve on elections panel County Executive David R. Craig was appointed to serve on the Governor's Commission on the Administration of Elections this week by Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. Craig, who served on two state election reform task forces in the mid-'90s, will be part of a nine-member panel that will look at integration of computer technology, procedures for counting ballots and reviewing early voting programs. The commission is expected to report its findings by Jan. 9. "The right of every qualified citizen to participate in free and open elections is vital," Craig said in a news release.

Maryland's housing department has unveiled 40-year fixed rate mortgage loans and $5,000 grants toward down payments to help residents cope with higher housing prices. The 40-year loans and down-payment grants are available this summer as part of the Department of Housing and Community Development's More House 4 Less program. More House 4 Less was established to help Marylanders afford houses in a market where the median home sale price rose more than seven times faster than did the median household income in the state between 2000 and 2003.

In a partial resolution of a 2 1/2 -year-old lawsuit filed on behalf of low-income disabled Baltimore residents, the city has agreed to allocate several hundred thousand dollars annually in federal funds it receives over the next decade to create new accessible and affordable housing. Under the terms of the agreement, the city will set aside 11.5 percent of its annual federal HOME grant for the next 10 years to create new or renovated rental housing units for poor disabled residents under the age of 62. The grant, which is designed to increase the supply of housing to low-income tenants and which varies from year to year, is currently $7.8 million.

Limited use starts tomorrow on Shepherds Mill Road Shepherds Mill Road near Union Bridge will open for limited use to Union Bridge area residents beginning tomorrow. The Maryland State Highway Administration has agreed to the limited opening provided that heavy trucks are prohibited until construction is complete. Use of the road will be restricted to passenger cars and light-duty trucks. The opening will allow motorists to begin using Shepherds Mill Road as an alternative to Main Street.

WHAT'S HAPPENING to Mayor Martin O'Malley's plan to take control of 5,000 derelict houses by 2004? Most of the target properties have been identified, and a year-long acquisition process is getting started. But this optimistic timetable could be in jeopardy. Denise M. Duval, the city's top housing code enforcer who oversaw the project, resigned recently. Now Michael Braverman, who was an acting deputy housing commissioner during Ms. Duval's three-month maternity leave, is on a two-month paternity leave.

Traveling aboard a trolley bus, city Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano and other housing officials will talk with residents at four community events tomorrow, beginning at 9 a.m. at the New Shiloh Baptist Church parking lot, 2100 N. Monroe St., for a "Christmas in April" volunteer day in the Mondawmin area. The tour will move at 10:15 a.m. to a "chat and chew" at the Bay-Brook Housing Festival in Bayview-Brooklyn, continue with an 11:30 a.m. "meet and greet" at the Herring Run Spring Festival in Belair-Edison, and end with a 1 p.m. stop at the rededication of the Patterson Park pagoda.