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.
HACA’s Maddox-Evans declined to comment. Through this repair and licensing process, 41 unlicensed occupied units were brought “back online” between May 9 and June 15, reducing the number of unlicensed occupied HACA units to 133. As of September, the 174 occupied but unlicensed units have been reduced to 112 and the 30 unlicensed vacant now number 17.
Harbour House has the most unlicensed units — occupied and vacant — according to Jakubiak. HACA manages four properties in Annapolis: Bloomsbury Square, Harbour House, Eastport Terrace and Robinwood. Three of the four properties are located in Ward 6, represented by Alderman DaJuan Gay.
While he is optimistic that this funding will help HACA address the repairs, he wants to make sure that the resolution does not “over police” HACA and the proposed funding because he does not want the city to be held liable. He said he wants the resolution to be out of committee by the end of October so that it can receive a vote. “This isn’t something that the council has the luxury of waiting until December to pass.
These are residents with legitimate issues. This should be out of committee by the end of October, no later. This [has] already taken too long,” he said.
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