Public Housing Residents

RESIDENTS OF Annapolis' impoverished Clay Street community have an opportunity to better their neighborhood. They should not let fears from the past stymie their efforts to help the city's Housing Authority pursue a major federal grant. The HOPE VI project could bring new townhouses and job training to two public housing communities.The fears of tenants who live in Obery Court and College Terrace are rooted in history. Three decades ago, African-American communities were bulldozed downtown in the name of urban renewal.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has granted Maryland $2.3 million to help people living in public housing find opportunities for job training and education. The money will be used to hire local “service coordinators” who will work with people living in public housing, or receiving financial assistance from the government to pay for housing, find services that will lead to employment, according to a statement Friday from the department. In addition to connecting public housing residents with job training and educational opportunities, the coordinators will be able to guide public assistance recipients to childcare, transportation, and counseling, and computer and budgeting lessons, HUD said.

The date for a trial to determine remedies for a finding of discrimination by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development against black public housing residents in Baltimore has been pushed back to at least March. The second, or remedy, phase of the trial in the 10-year-old civil rights case had been scheduled to begin Dec. 5 but was delayed by disputes between lawyers for HUD and public housing residents over the taking of expert witness depositions, according to court records.

Hundreds of families living in some of Baltimore's most impoverished neighborhoods will get to move to better conditions under a proposed settlement that could finally resolve a fair housing case dating back to 1995. Attorneys representing current and former public housing residents filed the settlement, which still has to be approved by a judge, in U.S. District Court late Friday. They hope the agreement with the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development will finally end more than 70 years of housing segregation that they say the government helped exacerbate.

Waterfront no place for public housing How ridiculous that the state is going to relocate some Annapolis public housing residents to a prized waterfront location ("A better view for public housing," April 8). Is Maryland's economic outlook so rosy that we can afford to throw away millions of dollars worth of real estate? The land should be sold to developers and the money used to offset our ridiculously high taxes and the apparent shortfall in funding for some programs touted as necessary by this newspaper.

Baltimore will serve as a pilot program for a new national effort to channel more federal housing funds toward low-income residents and minority businesses, officials announced yesterday.Under the initiative, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will work with other federal agencies to coordinate programs and cut red tape to make it easier to put into effect a 25-year-old requirement that recipients of federal housing funds give preference to the hiring of neighborhood residents and minority contractors.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development should remain under court jurisdiction until it fulfills its obligations under the terms of a partial consent decree negotiated in a 10-year-old public housing discrimination case in Baltimore, a federal appeals court ruled yesterday. In a 19-page opinion, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis to modify the consent decree by extending the court's jurisdiction over HUD because of the "near total failure" to meet deadlines for complying with terms of the agreement.

After some 30 members of an advocacy group picketed the Baltimore office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development yesterday over alleged rude treatment, HUD apologized to the group.Members of Citizens for Housing and New Grassroots Empowerment (CHANGE) also complained that local HUD officials did not view them as partners in efforts to solve problems in public housing. CHANGE members include public housing residents and representatives of nonprofit housing groups."We want respect!"

Mayor Martin O'Malley said yesterday that any remedy in a public housing discrimination case that involved the movement of city residents to the suburbs would be "antithetical" to his administration's goal of reversing Baltimore's decades-long decline in population. The comments were the mayor's first public statements on the decision this month by a federal judge that absolved the city of wrongdoing but found that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development violated fair-housing laws by not taking a regional approach to the desegregation of public housing.

Baltimore will serve as a pilot program for a national effort to channel more federal housing funds toward low-income residents and minority businesses, officials announced yesterday.Under the initiative, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will work with other federal agencies to coordinate programs and cut red tape to make it easier to put into effect a 25-year-old requirement that recipients of federal housing funds give preference to the hiring of neighborhood residents and minority contractors.

By now, Del. Samuel I. Rosenberg says he expected big news from the Housing Authority of Baltimore City - that it had found a way to resolve the millions of dollars in court-ordered judgments it owes former public housing residents who suffered lead paint poisoning as children. Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano told him in early January that the agency was "close to an agreement with the feds to work this thing out," Rosenberg recalled. Based on Graziano's assurance, Rosenberg says, he held off pursuing a remedy in the legislature when the General Assembly's annual session began days later.

jbayne The private company managing an Annapolis public housing complex has imposed a series of rules that tenants and their lawyers contend are unfair, unclear and violate federal regulations. The tenants of Annapolis Gardens are upset over provisions that bar large groups from congregating in many outdoor areas and make residents responsible for guests' behavior. They also question why property managers are requiring tenants age 10 and older to carry a photo identification in the complex or face being thrown off the property, and have set a $300 pet deposit that is four times higher than those charged at other city public housing developments.

Martha Benton, who was recalled as the articulate and empathetic voice of city public housing residents, died of complications from a breathing disorder Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The East Baltimore resident was 68. Martha Benton, who was recalled as the articulate and empathetic voice of city public housing residents, died of complications from a breathing disorder Tuesday at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The East Baltimore resident was 68. "She was a cherished personal friend and a gift to the people of Baltimore," said Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake.

Suing on behalf of residents who say their invited guests and relatives are barred from coming to their homes, the American Civil Liberties Union is challenging the Annapolis Housing Authority's practice of banning people from the public housing agency's property. The lawsuit against the authority, the city and others was filed Wednesday in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court by 11 people. It comes as the housing authority is in the midst of reworking its banning policy, which was enacted in 1994 and which allows the agency to ban from its 10 complexes "non-residents who are detrimental to the overall quality of life for public housing residents."

Samantha Johnson hasn't had an easy time of it. A year ago today, she was hospitalized in a psychiatric ward after attempting suicide, according to court documents, and was later fired from her job at Wal-Mart for missing too much work. One of her two sons, Timothy, 11, has severe asthma. Now Johnson and her boys face eviction from their apartment in a Cherry Hill public housing project because she's behind on the rent. Had it not been for a lawsuit filed Thursday by the Legal Aid Bureau on her behalf and that of three other families, Johnson, 31, might have been on the street as soon as next week.

On this block of Tyler Avenue in Annapolis, 17-year-old Kwame Travon Johnson was fatally shot Sunday night. A day later, a bloodstain and a flower marked the spot where his body was found. On this block, Timothy Hayes Marsh, 48, was fatally shot a month earlier. The family of the Severna Park resident, who was found slumped over the wheel of his 2001 Acura Integra, speculates that he was in the area to purchase drugs. And on this block is where Frank R. Jones, a 38-year-old electrical contractor, lived before turning up dead last month on a Davidsonville roadside.

Lawyers for Baltimore public housing residents are asking a federal judge to order the creation of 3,000 new low-income housing units and an additional 3,750 housing vouchers, mostly in well-off suburban neighborhoods with good schools and access to jobs. The request comes 14 months after the judge found that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development violated fair housing laws by failing to take a regional approach to the desegregation of city public housing. It asks the federal agency to provide tenants with 675 new "housing opportunities a year over the next decade to reduce the effects of decades of discriminatory actions."

Spirits were high in the Oswego Mall townhouse development in Northwest Baltimore as eight joyful Step Up apprentices graduated and public housing families toured their newly renovated homes.The graduates of the first Step Up class were honored recently after learning skills such as carpentry, bricklaying, tiling and painting in the project to renovate public housing developments.A crowd of 200 applauded as graduates jumped in excitement when their names were called to honor them with certificates of completion.

The 5-foot-deep craterlike sinkhole outside an Annapolis public housing building is filled with large white rocks to keep it from expanding. Three years after it formed and months after Annapolis Housing Authority officials said they were trying to get money to repair the hole, it is still eliminating dozens of parking spots for residents of the Glenwood high-rise, all of whom are elderly or disabled. Now, the sinkhole has a little brother: A second one has formed in the rear of the parking lot that circles the 154-unit building.

Hoping to prepare tenants for the change from not paying for electricity to paying some of the bill, the Housing Authority of Annapolis has pushed back the starting date for the shift a month to Oct. 1. The authority, which oversees 10 public housing communities, is holding meetings this month to inform residents about how they will be billed and how they can conserve energy. Trudy McFall, chairwoman of the authority's board of commissioners, said yesterday that some residents had heard only rumblings about the impending change.