Report says Baltimore needs landlord training

BROOKLYN CENTER, MINN. — Every other month landlords crowd into this Minneapolis suburb’s city hall to meet with government officials to learn how to be better property managers.

Some landlords attend voluntarily. Others are required to show up because Brooklyn Center housing inspectors have stamped their properties with low licensing grades.

For years in Maryland, tenant and landlord advocates have discussed with city, state and court officials the idea of a landlord training academy, but nothing has materialized. A consultant recently advised Baltimore housing officials that the time has come to support such an effort.

The Center for Community Progress, a national nonprofit that promotes policies to diminish urban blight, issued a 116-page report earlier this year advising Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development to “work with local landlord associations, nonprofits, and others to build a landlord support system, including training and technical assistance, and increased access to capital for improvements and upgrading.”

The center’s report, written by Alan Mallach, states that “building a stronger, more responsible landlord community requires more than enforcement, it requires affirmative measures to reward good landlords and a support system to improve landlord performance.”

A yearlong investigation by The Baltimore Sun reported in April that city housing inspectors rarely collected millions of dollars in fines issued to landlords for various violations. The Sun also found that landlords routinely prevailed in court proceedings against tenants even when inspectors reported dangerous living conditions.

Several cities — Milwaukee, Cincinnati and St. Paul, Minn. — have landlord training programs so that property managers are aware of their responsibilities to tenants, according to a Baltimore Sun investigation. — Doug Donovan