Executive director of community development services to retire

Kathleen Koch, the executive director of Arundel Community Development Services, will retire after 28 years as the head of a county nonprofit dedicated to helping residents find and stay in affordable homes.

County Executive Steuart Pittman announced Koch’s retirement Aug. 30. Her last day will be Dec. 31, 2021.

Koch founded the nonprofit and became its executive director in 1993. Under her leadership, Arundel Community Development Services created and preserved more than 3,000 affordable rental units and built a homeownership program. The organization has helped residents pay their rent during the coronavirus pandemic that has brought considerable economic hardships. The ability for residents to maintain stable housing during the pandemic is expected to become even more fragile this fall as a limited moratorium on evictions expires.

In February 2021, more than 300 Annapolis housing authority residents were behind on rent and ACDS provided legal assistance to them so they could avoid being evicted. The organization contracted with Civil Justice Inc., a Maryland legal services organization, to give legal assistance and financial counseling, among other resources, to residents of the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis. The initiative, called the Renter Eviction Avoidance Program, was funded with $106,000 in county eviction prevention funds administered by ACDS.

In early August, Koch told The Capital there are more than 1,200 applications for the county’s Eviction Prevention Program in the pipeline. In preparation, ACDS hired three attorneys, a paralegal and a legal assistant to handle when the state moratorium was expected to lift.

“Working here at ACDS has been both rewarding and challenging — helping to create ACDS has been my life’s work,” Koch said in a statement. “I will truly miss working with our team, and doing the important work of ACDS.”

In 2013, Ms. Koch was named the Housing Person of the Year by the Maryland Affordable Housing Coalition in recognition of her statewide effort to promote affordable housing, a county spokesperson said in a statement.