Housing Agency

At first glance, the image could be a Rohrschach inkblot, or maybe abstract art. What it doesn't resemble is public information - because, really, how informative can a blacked-out chart be? This image was given to The Sun by Baltimore's housing authority in response to a records request made under the Maryland Public Information Act. It illustrates the challenges reporters regularly face in trying to obtain public information from government agencies. (The agencies would probably say it shows how effectively the law keeps prying eyes from seeing things not meant for public consumption.)

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.

The Baltimore housing department received a $2.9 million federal grant Friday to clean up poisonous lead paint found in the walls of thousands of city buildings. Baltimore will receive $2.9 million from the federal government to fix lead-paint hazards in more than 200 homes, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Friday — a vote of confidence in the city's efforts to resolve past problems with its abatement program. "It's a tremendous boost to our work in protecting children from lead-paint poisoning," said Ken Strong, an assistant city housing commissioner who began overseeing the program last year after Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake moved it from the health department to the housing agency.

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.

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.

Mayor Martin O'Malley completed his Cabinet yesterday, naming former state Housing Secretary Patricia J. Payne as Baltimore's housing commissioner. As director of the Housing Authority of Baltimore City and the city Department of Housing and Community Development, Payne will be responsible for 2,200 city employees and a $300 million annual budget for services ranging from sheltering the homeless to issuing building permits. O'Malley credited Payne, who served as state housing secretary and deputy for seven years, with knowing state and federal housing programs that he hopes can help Baltimore rebuild poor neighborhoods and reduce the number of 20,000 families waiting for public housing.

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.

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.

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.

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.