Housing Authority

America is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis - Baltimore, too. Ten million families are paying more than 50 percent of their monthly income on rent, a severe cost burden that leaves little for food and other necessities. Over 32,000 applicants (and counting) are on the Housing Authority of Baltimore City's waiting lists. Public housing authorities can only do so much. With limited, dwindling public resources, private dollars are needed now more than ever to help create affordable housing.

Baltimore's housing authority has disciplined a group of employees after an internal investigator found that top agency officials hired lower-level staff to do contracting work at their homes. The agency's inspector general concluded that executive and senior management staff showed "a lack of good judgment" in hiring James Bassetti and Cecil Williams, who work for the housing authority's construction arm, according to a report issued by the office May 13. In all, five housing authority employees and the relative of a sixth paid for work to be done at their homes.

Baltimore's housing authority has disciplined a group of employees after an internal investigator found that top agency officials hired lower-level staff to do contracting work at their homes. The agency's inspector general concluded that executive and senior management staff showed "a lack of good judgment" in hiring James Bassetti and Cecil Williams, who work for the housing authority's construction arm, according to a report issued by the office May 13. In all, five housing authority employees and the relative of a sixth paid for work to be done at their homes.

Baltimore's housing office has disbanded its security unit, laying off seven sworn police officers, the agency said Thursday. The duties of the Lease Enforcement Unit - which investigates criminal activity in public housing to determine if a resident has violated his or her lease - will be assumed by housing's Inspector General's office, which investigates fraud, waste and abuse, said Cheron Porter, a spokeswoman for Baltimore Housing. "The Housing Authority of Baltimore City budget has suffered cuts generally over the past couple of years and with sequestration, more cuts could be on the horizon," Porter said in an email.

A federal grand jury yesterday charged that a local contractor paid $6,500 in bribes to a city housing authority manager at a time when his son served on the authority's board.The grand jury handed up a five-count indictment against Larry E. Jennings Sr., whose companies were awarded about $1.3 million in contracts for work in the authority's no-bid repair program.Yesterday's indictment marked the 13th time federal charges have been filed in connection with the housing authority's $25.6 million repair program, which was sharply criticized last fall in a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development audit.

William J. Schmidt, a former department store buyer who later became director of administration for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, died Monday at his Bel Air home of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 79. The son of a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. actuary and a homemaker, William Joseph Schmidt was born in Baltimore and raised on Aisquith Street. He was a 1951 graduate of Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington and earned a bachelor's degree in 1955 in business administration from what is now Loyola University Maryland.

As the executive director of the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, I'd like to correct misleading statements contained in a recent article ("Housing authority racks up legal bills," Sept. 18). The article gives the impression that HABC has spent $4 million in legal fees merely to avoid paying $12 million in court-ordered judgments in 10 cases. That is simply not true. These funds were spent to defend the agency in hundreds of cases. In 2009 alone, our defense saved HABC more than $100 million in unfounded claims.

Representatives from the Baltimore sheriff's office moved across a city housing authority parking lot Wednesday morning, tagging 20 of the agency's vehicles to be seized and eventually sold to pay part of a court judgment to lead paint victims. The Housing Authority of Baltimore City has resisted paying siblings Antonio Fulgham and Brittany McCutcheon the $2.59 million awarded by a jury in 2010, as the agency appeals the case. But the plaintiffs, who suffered lead poisoning while living in public housing, have filed legal actions to move forward with collecting the debts.

Baltimore's housing bureau does not have to pay a $2.6 million jury award to two siblings who say they were poisoned by lead paint when they lived in public residences as toddlers, a Maryland intermediate appellate court ruled Thursday. The decision, written by Judge Kathryn Grill Graeff of the Court of Special Appeals, hinges on the siblings not having filed notice of their claim within 180 days of their injury, as required by the state statute that governs personal injury suits against local governments.

A Baltimore jury on Wednesday awarded $1.3 million in damages to a 17-year-old girl, finding that negligence by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City was a substantial factor in lead-paint poisoning she suffered as a young girl. Amafica Woodland lived in a now-demolished house in the Flag House Courts housing project in East Baltimore until she was nearly 3. Her attorney, Scott Nevin, said he expected the award to be reduced to $690,000 because of a state cap on non-economic damages.

As the legislative chair of the Maryland Association of Housing and Redevelopment Agencies, which represents the agencies that actually administer the Section 8 rental assistance program, it was disturbing to read the distortions in Marta Mossburg's recent column ("Forcing landlords to accept vouchers won't help the poor," April 23). In addition to Ms. Mossburg's misstatements related to the Maryland HOME Act bill itself, which is merely intended to protect every person in the state as long as they have a lawful source of income, she instead focuses on whether the discrimination Section 8 voucher holders experience at the hand of landlords really makes any difference at all. Well, in my experience it does!

America is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis - Baltimore, too. Ten million families are paying more than 50 percent of their monthly income on rent, a severe cost burden that leaves little for food and other necessities. Over 32,000 applicants (and counting) are on the Housing Authority of Baltimore City's waiting lists. Public housing authorities can only do so much. With limited, dwindling public resources, private dollars are needed now more than ever to help create affordable housing.

Human nature frequently disproves theories. Conventional wisdom, for example, says that open office space plans with workers grouped like cattle encourage creativity and collaboration. But study after study shows that people are more inventive, productive and healthy with more privacy. Susan Cain writes about this eloquently in "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. " But examples are legion of experience trumping ideology. Would that legislators, like state Sen. Jamie Raskin, keep this in mind when trying to help people.

A 41-year-old Washington woman was sentenced Thursday to three years in federal prison for her role in conspiring to steal $1.4 million from the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Maryland announced. In imposing his sentence, U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles, Jr. also ordered Tyeast "Peaches" Brown to serve four years of supervised release after her prison term and to pay the public housing agency at least $1.4 million in restitution. She earlier pleaded guilty.

A 50-year-old Washington man was sentenced to more than three years in prison Wednesday for his role in a 2010 bank fraud scheme that led to almost $1.4 million being siphoned from a Baltimore Housing Authority account, prosecutors said. Keith Eugene Daughtry was also ordered to pay restitution of $1,399,700 in addition to his 41-month prison sentence and five years of supervised release, according to the office of U.S. AttorneyRod J. Rosenstein. Daughtry pleaded guilty in February to allowing his fellow conspirators to use his identity to set up a company that hid the stolen money, and to spending some of the money himself, prosecutors said.

Baltimore Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano met last month with an influential state lawmaker to discuss more than $8 million in unpaid court-ordered judgments against the city's housing authority, which have resulted from lead-paint poisoning lawsuits brought by former public housing residents. But Del. Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg said Graziano did not cover new ground at the June 5 meeting. “There was nothing new that I was told,” said Rosenberg, a Baltimore Democrat who is vice chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee.

Baltimore's Housing Authority filed a motion Friday to prevent its property from being sold in order to satisfy a $2.6 million judgment in a lead paint exposure case, according to the agency. Last week, representatives from the Baltimore's sheriff's office tagged vehicles used by the Housing Authority in anticipation of seizing them to pay off a jury award. Siblings Antonio Fulgham and Brittany McCutcheon were provided the judgment in 2010, but the agency has resisted making payments while it appeals.

The Housing Authority of Baltimore City often cites a lack of funds to explain its refusal to pay nearly $12 million in court-ordered judgments to former public housing residents who suffered permanent lead-paint poisoning as children. But the city's public housing agency has paid private lawyers about $4 million since 2005 to defend against those lead-paint claims. In May and June alone it spent $228,000 on legal fees, a total that works out to more than $5,000 per day, including expenses.

William J. Schmidt, a former department store buyer who later became director of administration for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, died Monday at his Bel Air home of complications from Parkinson's disease. He was 79. The son of a Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. actuary and a homemaker, William Joseph Schmidt was born in Baltimore and raised on Aisquith Street. He was a 1951 graduate of Mount St. Joseph High School in Irvington and earned a bachelor's degree in 1955 in business administration from what is now Loyola University Maryland.

A Baltimore jury on Wednesday awarded $1.3 million in damages to a 17-year-old girl, finding that negligence by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City was a substantial factor in lead-paint poisoning she suffered as a young girl. Amafica Woodland lived in a now-demolished house in the Flag House Courts housing project in East Baltimore until she was nearly 3. Her attorney, Scott Nevin, said he expected the award to be reduced to $690,000 because of a state cap on non-economic damages.