Tenants

John T. Hanson has adopted as his slogan: "The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer."It took the 74-year-old Westminster resident eight years to see his latest project to completion.But the first nine tenants have now moved into Ridge Residences, a community of 80 federally subsidized, assisted-living apartments for the elderly and handicapped on Timber Ridge Drive in Westminster.Mr. Hanson is president of Ridge Residences Inc., the nonprofit development corporation formed to build the community.

Things have gone from bad to worse for Baltimore' Brokerage.Last week, the office, retail and entertainment complex near the Inner Harbor lost one of its largest tenants. The Maryland Department of Licensing and Regulation moved the state's banking and credit commissions from the building. Together they had occupied 12,000 square feet, about 8.3 percent of the building's office space.The Brokerage currently has a vacancy rate of about 35 percent for both its retail and office areas, says Charles Evans, asset manager for B.A. Properties.

When tenants of the Broadway, a public housing high-rise for the elderly, began complaining four years ago about poor living conditions, they hoped city officials would do something to help them -- perhaps provide new plumbing or a new air-conditioning system.What the city is offering instead is a new address."The building is ill," said Zachary Germroth, spokesman for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. "The plumbing needs work, the elevators are inadequate, there's no air conditioning in the building and on numerous floors there is moisture coming in. After taking a hit in federal funding, we simply don't have the money to do the repairs."

The new owner of an Annapolis apartment complex has begun displacing residents as a prelude to a multimillion-dollar renovation and possible conversion to condominiums. Case Edwards Management, which recently took over managing the 303-unit Spa Cove Apartments, requested last month that some residents relocate within 30 days, as it prepares to renovate 53 apartments in five buildings. The notices - written in English and Spanish - started going out early last month. Some threatened residents with eviction because the notices said they could be violating community standards, such as housekeeping.

The case of Henry John "Jack" Reed III vs. Goldie Sanders is on the docket this morning in city Rent Court on North Avenue. It pits a senior housing inspector against a 33-year-old mother of two who is renting a crumbling rowhouse from him in East Baltimore.Mr. Reed wants to evict his tenant. But actually on trial are the policies of the city's Department of Housing and Community Development and a housing code that is supposed to protect renters.LTC Mr. Reed, 55, a superintendent of housing inspection for almost three decades, was allowed to amass a portfolio of 13 troubled rental properties on the city's east side with the knowledge of his immediate superiors.

NEW YORK - It had to happen eventually. Chinatown already spills over into two neighborhoods moving from modest to mod: Little Italy and the Lower East Side. And it is just a cell phone's throw from TriBeCa and SoHo. Gentrification was bound to come to Chinatown. Now that it has arrived, the neighborhood is experiencing the usual side effects, including landlords trying to evict longtime tenants who pay very little rent in favor of deep-pocketed bond traders. But this time there is a twist.

County Council Chairman C. Vernon Gray, D-3rd, expressing concern that longtime elderly residents at two U.S. 1 mobile home parks are being asked to pay $350 security deposits, has asked the county consumeroffice to investigate.The management of Elkridge Mobile Home Park in Elkridge and Midway Trailer Park in north Laurel told tenants ina two-paragraph letter July 19 that the security deposits -- the first ever collected from them -- must be paid by Dec. 1. It is necessary "due to the increase in cost incurred to the Park when a resident moves out," the letter said.

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin introduced legislation yesterday that would make it easier for real estate investment trusts to provide telephone, cable, Internet and other services to their tenants.The legislation, called the Real Estate Investment Trust Modernization Act of 1999, is similar to changes proposed in the budget President Clinton sent to Congress earlier this year.Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, and the bill's co-author, Republican Rep. Bill Thomas of California, said forbidding REITs from providing these and other nonreal estate services to their tenants puts them at a competitive disadvantage.

When the county declared a Hampstead farmhouse unliveable last summer, a family of three and their roommate were displaced and the landlords were left with costly repairs and legal controversy.Nearly three months later, the house on Houcksville Road remains empty except for the family's possessions, which are contaminated with lead dust. The landlords continue to seek $760 monthly rent from the former tenants even though a Carroll County judge abated it for September and October.The tenants, Tristram Corbin, 22, and Antion Williams-Brown, 23, insist that the landlords break the lease, return their $760 security deposit, relocate the family and reimburse them for damages and rent paid elsewhere.

Baltimore County launches an innovative effort today that aims to turn tax burdens into taxpayers, tenants into homeowners.It's called the Self-Sufficiency Program, and it mirrors efforts nationwide in the past decade as officials search for ways to move people off public assistance amid deep cuts in federal social spending.More than 120 families have signed up for the project, which encourages Section 8 tenants to move off public assistance and into their own homes through job training and a down payment savings plan.