Housing Authority expands voucher program

The Housing Authority of Baltimore City announced that it has allocated an additional 50 Housing Choice vouchers to help homeless residents obtain housing.

The agency announced Tuesday in a news release that it now offers 900 vouchers annually through the city’s Coordinated Access process, which is designed to assess people’s needs and connect them with appropriate aid for housing and homeless services.

“All of us at HABC feel a tremendous obligation to attack the immense problem of homelessness that the city of Baltimore faces,” Housing Authority CEO Janet Abrahams said. “We do not want to see people living under bridges or in encampments — and as we have done over the past several years, we are efficiently putting our money where it can make the biggest impact.”

The vouchers are allocated to families referred by the Mayor’s Office of Homeless Services to the city’s housing authority, which then assesses whether they’re eligible to be given a voucher to use to pay for rent and utilities at privately-owned units.

The agency said the 900 vouchers are in addition to more than 2,300 vouchers allocated to special populations, including homeless veterans and residents recently released from incarceration.

The housing authority also is overseeing the redevelopment of the Perkins, Somerset and Oldtown areas, a multi-phase, mixeduse development slated to cost more than $1 billion, with a mix of city and state dollars along with proceeds from tax increment financing.