Affordable housing

We applaud The Capital’s support of the establishment of a Housing Trust Fund in Anne Arundel County (The Capital, March 7). Over the past three years, Anne Arundel Connecting Together, a non-partisan organization representing 25 congregations, non-profits and small businesses, has been listening to our community and taking action.

In 2019 at a packed gathering of 687 people at Asbury United Methodist Church in Annapolis, we asked county leadership for a Housing Trust Fund as part of a package of solutions that gives hardworking people a chance at housing security and affordability. They said, “yes.” One of those solutions included the Fair Housing Law passed in 2019.

We know housing affordability is at the top of families’ lists of concerns. Many of the thousands of people we have talked with told us, over and over again, that they try to save, they work multiple jobs, but they cannot get over the hump of housing affordability as housing prices rise and rise in our county, outstripping the pace of wage increases. Those in Annapolis who have taken advantage of the city’s Housing Trust Fund credit it with giving them a stake in the city they were born in, grew up in, but never thought they’d be landowners in.

County Executive Steuart Pittman’s support of House Bill 993 was promised to us in 2019. We are grateful it has a favorable report in the Senate.

It’s ridiculous to argue that this bill hurts the middle class as big developers claim: it helps make working families’ dreams a reality and helps people transition to the middle class. The transfer tax to fund it only impacts property sales over $1 million, impacting 5% to 7% of property sales county-wide.

This bill makes it more affordable for first responders, law enforcement officers, teachers, nurses, and many other working people essential to the wellbeing of this county to live in the county. This is good for all of us. Pass this bill.

The Rev. Dr. Karen Johnson, Annapolis The Rev. Stephen A. Tillett, Annapolis Editor’s Note: The authors are Co-Chairs of Anne Arundel Connecting Together.