Low Income Housing

Echoing a controversy that engulfed several neighborhoods seven years ago, a proposal to create low-income housing is again stirring passions in Northeast Baltimore. In online message groups, petitions and interviews, many residents are objecting to a proposal to convert a closed Catholic school into affordable apartments. They favor turning the shuttered St. Dominic School on Harford Road in Hamilton into a charter school, market-rate housing or senior apartments. They fear that retrofitting the building for 30 low-income rental units invites decay - not only of the property but of the largely middle-class area around it. "I'm worried about crime in the neighborhood.

The federal government has ended its 1994 review of the Baltimore Housing Authority's scandal-ridden, $25.6 million, no-bid repair program for low-income housing.The housing authority returned $343,400 to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to resolve accusations that the authority paid twice the going rate to fix apartments for the poor, paid contractors for work that was not done and paid millions to companies run by friends and relatives of authority directors.The HUD audit led to an FBI investigation.

The federal government has ended its 1994 review of the Baltimore Housing Authority's scandal-ridden, $25.6 million, no-bid repair program for low-income housing.The housing authority returned $343,400 to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to resolve accusations that the authority paid twice the going rate to fix apartments for the poor, paid contractors for work that was not done and paid millions to companies run by friends and relatives of authority directors.The HUD audit led to an FBI investigation.

THE PROBLEM with low-income housing? Low-income people. That's the incongruous conclusion of a bill approved by the House to roll back the Housing Act of 1937, which created public housing for displaced workers after the Depression.There are several vindictive provisions, among them a requirement the unemployed in public housing contribute eight hours a month of volunteer service. There's nothing wrong with volunteerism, but it is not a requirement for other public assistance, such as college grants, small business loans or farm subsidies.

A Baltimore-area interfaith organization founded three years ago to involve churches and synagogues in housing programs for low-income families mounted an attack this week on recent efforts to reduce government funding of such programs.The Maryland Interfaith Conference on Affordable Housing (MICAH) called on local, state and federal legislators not only to "oppose any reductions in programs affecting the provision of housing" but to support increased funding."MICAH believes that the suggestion that religious and private groups could provide affordable housing as an alternative to governmental financing is not true," the statement said.

Harford County Housing Inc., a nonprofit organization created more than a year ago to build and refurbish homes countywide for low-income buyers, has a hired an executive director and is looking for homes to purchase.The new executive director is Frank Hodgetts, who will oversee the search for properties. One site under consideration is the Army-surplus Washington Court on Aberdeen Proving Ground near Edgewood.Harford County Housing is using a new approach in the county in its attempt to make up for the lack of low-income housing.

Nichole Griffin says she would like to move into a neighborhood such as Columbia's Long Reach village, but some residents in that community don't want low-income neighbors like her."I can come to your house and baby-sit your child, but I can't come live beside you," Ms. Griffin told a group of about 60 people at a forum on affordable housing yesterday.The forum, sponsored by Coldwell Banker Grempler's Grempler Real Estate Assistance Team, was the fourth annual gathering of public and private advocates for affordable housing.

A crowd of Long Reach village residents objected last night to a proposed affordable housing development, expressing concern that the project would adversely affect property values and create a segregated island of low-income housing."

Invariably, when the discussion turns to low- and moderately-priced housing, there is an undercurrent of unspoken and sometimes spoken) emotion. Debates about scattered-site housing and what represents a community's fair share of the burden are sometimes used to mask people's true concerns. Even though the term "affordable housing" should speak for itself, some people mistake it to mean low-income housing, and see it as a breeder of crime and deterioration.In Howard County these issues are playing out in the opposition in the Kendall Ridge neighborhood of Columbia's Long Reach village, where the Enterprise Foundation and the Rouse Co. want to build 64 town houses for buyers and renters whose household income is $25,000 a year or less.

For some, the quest for affordable housing has taken on aspects of a crusade. And like any crusade, the potential to shade the facts is incessant for those on either end of the issue.The Howard County Zoning Board recently unanimously endorsed an amendment that would allow developers to build at greater densities in some locations if they include affordable housing in their projects. The definition of affordable housing, however, was never made explicit. Councilman Paul Farragut, who authored the amendment, insists that "what we're really talking about is the $80,000 townhouse."

It's never been easy building new homes affordable to people with moderate incomes, but selling them - that's usually a snap. Which is why no one at a Baltimore nonprofit that finished eight townhouses in December expected they'd still be sitting empty today. Demand isn't the problem. It's the credit crunch. With home prices and apartment rents both falling nationwide, it might seem like a good time to get more people into residences that don't overwhelm their monthly budgets. But affordable-housing activists say the reality is just the opposite.

Echoing a controversy that engulfed several neighborhoods seven years ago, a proposal to create low-income housing is again stirring passions in Northeast Baltimore. In online message groups, petitions and interviews, many residents are objecting to a proposal to convert a closed Catholic school into affordable apartments. They favor turning the shuttered St. Dominic School on Harford Road in Hamilton into a charter school, market-rate housing or senior apartments. They fear that retrofitting the building for 30 low-income rental units invites decay - not only of the property but of the largely middle-class area around it. "I'm worried about crime in the neighborhood.

County must replace low-income housing I read with concern reporter Laura Barnhardt's article on Baltimore County's plan to purchase York Park Apartments ("Project called key to revival," March 27). Other blighted tracts of low-income housing have been purchased and torn down by Baltimore County in the past several years: 300-plus units at Kingsley Park, 700-plus units at Riverdale Apartments, and a number of units at the Village of Tall Trees. Not one unit of affordable housing lost to revitalization has been replaced.

A coalition of three Howard County groups is trying to revive public discussion of a once touchy but now rarely mentioned topic -- low-income housing. "There is this lower [income] category we don't talk about," said Sherman Howell, who this week raised the issue to three Howard County council members -- two of whom are running for county executive this year. With home prices in Howard up more than 77 percent in four years, public discussion has shifted from low-income housing to units for people in the $34,000 to $90,000 income range.

Plans for urbanizing Columbia's Town Center must include moderate-income housing, according to Howard County Executive James N. Robey, whose administration is crafting a rezoning proposal for the project. "I think there should be affordable housing in Town Center. This will not be an exclusive area for the rich," Robey told a lunchtime audience of about 50 Association of Community Services members Friday after a question from state Del. Elizabeth Bobo. Bobo said that although no percentages were mentioned, Robey's comments are important.

County needs more low-income housing options The Sun's article about the redevelopment of Kingsley Park was disturbing ("County nears deal to acquire, develop Kingsley Park site," June 8); it is another reminder of Baltimore County's abysmal failure to make housing options for low-income families and individuals a high priority. There are thousands of families on Baltimore County's waiting list for subsidized housing. They face a three-to-five-year wait for assistance. Yet the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the county and community members are considering this site for senior housing and moderately priced single-family homes.

Gone are the days when Uncle Sam footed most of the bill for affordable housing. Public financing is scarcer as the need for cheaper homes is greater. Nonprofits trying to provide accommodations that low- and moderate-income people can afford to buy or rent have increasingly turned to the people who spend their time trying to turn a profit - developers and bankers. "More and more of what's going on in community development has come from the private sector market," said Clarence Snuggs, Baltimore office director for the Enterprise Foundation, a national neighborhood revitalization group based in Columbia.

ADD ADVOCATES of affordable housing to the growing list of those affected by the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on America. At a meeting last week in Washington that was part of the annual conference of the Enterprise Foundation, providers of low-income homes and apartments were portrayed as being caught in a classic squeeze. On one end, the demand for low-income housing and apartments is growing as the recession curtails the ability of those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder to move out of poverty.

The federal government has ended its 1994 review of the Baltimore Housing Authority's scandal-ridden, $25.6 million, no-bid repair program for low-income housing.The housing authority returned $343,400 to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to resolve accusations that the authority paid twice the going rate to fix apartments for the poor, paid contractors for work that was not done and paid millions to companies run by friends and relatives of authority directors.The HUD audit led to an FBI investigation.

The federal government has ended its 1994 review of the Baltimore Housing Authority's scandal-ridden, $25.6 million, no-bid repair program for low-income housing.The housing authority returned $343,400 to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to resolve accusations that the authority paid twice the going rate to fix apartments for the poor, paid contractors for work that was not done and paid millions to companies run by friends and relatives of authority directors.The HUD audit led to an FBI investigation.