Baltimore affordable housing charter amendment makes ballot  

Baltimore voters will decide in November whether the city should create a trust fund encouraging the development of affordable housing.

Housing for All Baltimore, a coalition of several nonprofits and activist groups, collected 18,577 signatures in support of putting the charter amendment creating the Affordable Housing Trust Fund on the ballot. The Board of Elections certified 12,057 of those signatures; 10,000 were needed to put the proposal in front of voters.

“It was a big effort to get the signatures,” said Odette Ramos, executive director of the Community Development Network of Maryland, one of the coalition’s members.

Backers of the proposal were able to pull together the needed signatures in a six-week period starting in July.

The critical part of the proposal, and why a charter amendment is needed, is that it allows the Baltimore City Council to direct money into the trust fund.

There is no funding mechanism attached, but the council would be able to direct funds from the city’s budget, tax increment finance proceeds or any voluntary or mandatory payments made pursuant to development laws. The trust fund would also be able to accept grants and donations.

Baltimore Housing, and a 12 member commission appointed by the mayor that includes low-income residents, would oversee the trust fund. Baltimore Housing would also determine allocations.

The projects that will benefit from the fund will be for the city’s poorest residents. Money would go to developments that provide housing to residents making up to 50 percent or 30 percent of the area median income, which would be defined as low or very low income.

“It’s an attempt to reach residents who are really having a hard time,” Ramos said.

The charter amendment won’t be the only affordable housing item on November’s ballot. Voters will also get to decide on whether to approve a bond issue to create a $6 million affordable housing fund proposed by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake last year. The administration envisions that money being used as gap funding for affordable housing projects.

The issue of affordable housing in Baltimore has been in the news in recent months. Activists are seeking concessions in exchange for the city granting $660 million in tax increment financing to Sagamore Development Co., which plans to turn Port Covington into a massive mixed-use project.

Groups, such as Housing Our Neighbors, want Sagamore to set aside 20 percent of the planned 13,500 residential units for residents making 30 percent of the area median income. Sagamore currently has an agreement with the city that includes a goal of 10 percent of the units for residents making 80 percent of the area median income.

Councilman Bill Henry earlier this month introduced legislation that would overhaul the city’s inclusionary and affordable housing law. It would require developments of at least 30 units that receive public subsidies or financing to set aside 10 percent of rental units for residents making up to 60 percent of the area median income and 10 percent of ownership units for residents making 80 percent of the area median income.

In May, an Abell Foundation report by Johns Hopkins University graduate student Philip M.E. Garboden found a “double crisis” in Baltimore. The report concluded that the city was struggling with poverty at the same time it was facing a “rent crisis” for families making between $20,000 and $75,000.

“More than half of Baltimore’s renters live in housing they cannot afford; 57 percent pay more than 30 percent of their income for housing and, staggeringly, 33 percent pay more than half. And it’s getting worse. Rising rents and stagnant incomes have forced more and more families to spend more of their budget on housing, and increasing financial insecurity and the risk of eviction or foreclosure,” according to the report.