The Housing Authority of Baltimore City acknowledges the city?s public housing program has steadily decreased in size over the past 20 years and maintains it struggles with many funding challenges.
The Housing Authority said The Abell Foundation?s report “trivialized the highly complex challenges facing Baltimore City?s public housing program.”
In “Leveraging Public Housing Assets to Support Baltimore?s Neighborhood Renaissance,” the Housing Authority highlighted several challenges in response to The Abell Foundation?s report, “The Dismantling of Baltimore?s Public Housing.”
Federal housing policy has stopped funding public housing development, shifted resources to the Section 8 voucher program and all but eliminated public housing revitalization dollars, the Housing Authority reported.
In the past 10 years, about 170,000 public housing units have been lost across the nation due to deterioration and decay, and annual funding for public housing repair costs dropped 33 percent from 1999 to 2006.
“We stand strongly behind the findings of our report,” said Cheron Porter, spokeswoman for the Housing Authority.
The Abell Foundation?s report criticized the Housing Authority for demolishing thousands of public housing units in the past 15 years without replace the units.
According to The Abell Foundation report, the Housing Authority is planning to spend almost $24 million on demolition and $14 million on redevelopment in 2007 and 2008.
“I don?t know where the truth lies,” said Robert Embry Jr., president of The Abell Foundation. “There?s no question about the decline in the number of housing units. The question is who is at fault, and it?s a complex issue.”
Public housing, across the country, has been seen largely as a failure due to the many rules the government put in place to guide public housing, said Richard Clinch, a University of Baltimore economist.
“It?s come to be seen as a problem, not a solution,” Clinch said. “This is a big problem and it has been more acute across the region.”
Clinch said he was “surprised” to learn the Housing Authority?s number of occupied public housing units dropped 42 percent in the last 15 years. Increasing home prices and population totals have left many of Baltimore?s low-income residents without affordable housing, Clinch said.
“There?s no way to replace these units because the federal government isn?t paying for it,” Clinch said. “This problem will only get worse.”
