The Annapolis City Council is considering changing a $500,000 grant from being for private landlords to being used to rehabilitate some public housing. The funds were set aside for private landlords to fix up their properties and bring them into compliance with city standards. Now the city now wants to give the funds to the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis, which has been experiencing a multi-year financial crisis due to unpaid rent.
“The city finds itself navigating through a storm of financial instability,” Melissa Maddox Evans, executive director of HACA, wrote in an Capital Gazette opinion column in April . “It’s a predicament brought on by a combination of factors: the city’s overly burdensome inspection processes and a subset of residents lack of financial accountability.” The $500,000 grant is part of the fiscal 2024 budget designed to allow private landlords to apply for up to $10,000 for rehabilitation projects.
The Department of Planning and Zoning oversees the money, but not the relationship between the tenant and landlord. In May, the city said there were 174 occupied units and 30 vacant units that were unlicensed because they had not passed their annual inspection, according to data provided by Chris Jakubiak, director of Planning and Zoning for the city. “The $500,000 would make substantial progress towards repairing units and licensing them, but it won’t enough to resolve all the units or all the conditions,” Jakubiak said Monday.
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