Housing Authority

A Pittsburgh-based contractor was accused yesterday of bribing a Baltimore Housing Authority employee -- the fifth person charged in an ongoing federal probe into corruption in the city's public housing agency.Michael E. Wilson, president of Classic Contractors Inc., was charged by federal prosecutors with conspiring with one of his managers to give cash payments and a Florida golfing trip worth a total of $17,031.53 to a Housing Authority engineer who administered repair contracts.The others charged in the probe -- two contractors and two authority employees -- have pleaded guilty.

Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke has hired a private attorney to study ways to improve the management of the troubled Housing Authority of Baltimore City.Edward Hitchcock was hired by the mayor on Monday -- the day Housing Authority Executive Director Robert W. Hearn shook up the authority's top management by firing Deputy Executive Director Juanita Clark Harris and transferring James Martin, director of the division of housing management, to work on special projects...

The city Housing Authority city has sent out 18 layoff notices as part of a restructuring effort to improve the department's efficiency, officials said yesterday. The authority plans to rehire many workers in the next two months. But the department will save about $100,000 by eliminating one management position in the public housing section, said Paul T. Graziano, the housing commissioner. All 18 employees will have to reapply for redesigned positions, and not all of them will necessarily be rehired.

The chief of Baltimore's Housing Authority yesterday scrapped the policy of granting maintenance workers "heat leave," saying they can't be given time off when there is a backlog of 30,000 requests for repairs in public housing.Daniel P. Henson III, the authority's executive director, indefinitely suspended a provision in the workers' contract that gives them the rest of the day off if the temperature reaches 90 degrees or higher with 55 percent humidity by noon.He cited a clause in the contract that allows the authority to keep its 430 maintenance workers on in emergency situations.

The warning signs are all there. The Annapolis Housing Authority is headed for serious trouble again. Suspicious bidding procedures, an ongoing federal audit, waning support from housing commission members -- these problems are casting a )) shadow over Executive Director Harold S. Greene.Four years ago, Mr. Greene was hailed as a savior of Annapolis' public housing operation while his predecessor, Arthur G. Strissel Jr., went to federal prison for fraud, bid-rigging and taking bribes. While there is no indication that the current troubles are in this league, Mr. Greene'e tendency to dismiss them as "blown out of proportion" could spell trouble.

Alicia Johnson of Annapolis rubbed her eyes, unhappy with the craft beads she got for a Christmas present."What's the long face about?" asked Veta Covert, director of education and recreation for the Annapolis Housing Authority. "Don't you like your present?"Johnson shook her head. "I'll get you another one," Covert said.Johnson, a Newtowne 20 resident, opened the new present. Her face beamed when she found a Barbie doll inside.Johnson was one of 70 kids whose lives were brightened Friday night at Anne Arundel Community College.

CHICAGO -- Proud of his national reputation for innovation and creativity, Vince Lane spent seven years running the Chicago Housing Authority, spinning bold new strategies meant to improve life for the city's 86,000 public housing tenants.Conditions, federal officials say, only got worse.Now Mr. Lane and his board are gone, startling Chicago by quitting en masse last month. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development hustled an emergency management team from Washington to take over.

On a sunny afternoon last week, Meade Village blossomed to life. Childrenplayed tag between the low-rise apartment buildings. Teen-agers hungout in the parking lot, a mother chased after her toddler, and Cheryl Harold took a hard look at her lawn.The spring fever was contagious, drawing more and more people outside. Harold stopped to chat with a few neighbors, but she was constantly on the go -- meeting with the new, on-site housing manager and talking to the police officers patrolling the streets.

Baltimore police raided two houses yesterday morning and arrested five people, including a city housing authority employee, and charged them with being major cocaine and heroin suppliers to a West Baltimore public housing high-rise.The officers seized four cars, two fully loaded 9 mm semiautomatic machine pistols and thousands of dollars in the simultaneous 7:30 a.m. raids, which were the result of a four-month investigation.Police said they also seized 3 ounces of pure heroin that, when diluted and sold on the street, would be enough to supply 2,000 people with one dose each.

An Annapolis alderman criticized the management of the Annapolis Housing Authority Friday and proposed that the City Council and public housing residents play a greater role in the operation of the town's 1,509 public and subsidized housing units.Alderman Wayne T. Turner, a Ward 6 Republican, said the housing authority has mismanaged the money it receives from the federal government to provide homes for low- and moderate-income residents and has been unable to deal with drug-related activities in those communities.