Link Roundup

Occupancy fraud is on the rise across the country, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

Speaking of occupancy fraud, I wonder if Maryland has gone after the taxpayers who have been illegally claiming the Homestead Tax Credit?

Home prices weaken in the 3rd quarter of 2011.  (Link opens a PDF)

So far 74 banks have failed in 2011, less than 2010′s 124.

“Ruin Porn” — it’s a thing.  Who knew?  @BretMcBret knew.

Harrisburg’s mayor makes ours look like Einstein.  No, really.

The City Paper did a great piece on Baltimore’s vacants and what it would cost to demolish them — there’s also mention of Pless Jones, the City’s “official” demolition guy, and his company.

Baltimore Brew is on Kickstarter — you should support them.

 

 

Link Roundup

Camden Crossing development lots go into foreclosure, hit the auction block in December, the Baltimore Business Journal reports. Backstory on Camden Crossing — the environmental issues are truly frightening. (Link opens a PDF)

Also in the BBJ, Baltimore City median home prices fell in 2011 to $82,000. Houses are selling faster, but they’re selling cheaper — a sign that desperate sellers are ready to flee?

Federal funding for rehabbing vacants – should it go to investors, nonprofits, or homeowners?

NYT Opinion piece — The Death of the Fringe Suburb

Baltimore Sun Op-Ed - Overdue Justice for Lead Paint Victims

Vacant houses as art, in Cleveland.

 

Link Roundup

Maryland Court of Appeals votes 5-2 to overturn the most controversial part of Maryland’s antiquated ground rent law, according to the Baltimore Sun.  Hopefully this loophole won’t result in people losing their homes again, as reported a few years ago in the Sun. Here’s an older post about Baltimore’s ground rent controversy, with links to the Sun’s older articles. (Thanks to Reader Rusty for the link!)

BCFD rescued a man from his burning home Wednesday (next door to a boarded up vacant owned by HABC), thankfully there were enough personnel and equipment available.  If the City has its way, and is able to cut the fire department’s budget by $10 million, I have to wonder how many people will have longer wait times during emergencies. (Thanks to Reader Rusty for this link, too!)

Photographer Eve Morgenstern has a photo exhibit of abandoned homes in Oakland, California.  Beautiful, don’t you think?

Slums around the world — before and after.  Communities really can come together to improve the lives of the poor, in meaningful cost-effective ways.  They just don’t do it in America — the richest nation in the world.  Very odd. (Thanks to reader RMS for the link!)

Baltimore City will now collect styrofoam for recycling.  While this is better than nothing (hence all of the junk in the harbor) — we’d prefer the city implement a ban on polystyrene, as they did in Portland, Oregon.

Speaking of bans — we’d also like to see a ban, or a fee for the use of, plastic shopping bags.  If you haven’t been to DC lately — in the neighborhoods where the bag fee is enforced, the streets are incredibly clean.  No bags in the street!

The default rate for first and second mortgages increased slightly in September, according to a report issued by S&P.

A Severn title company owner was sentenced for his mortgage scams, according to the FBI.

Working paper available for download: The Impact of Vacant, Tax-Delinquent, and Foreclosed Property on Sales Prices of Neighboring Homes (From the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland).

Link Roundup

You’ve probably heard that Senator Charles Grassley (R, Iowa) has launched an investigation into the fraud and waste at Baltimore Housing — read a letter from Senator Grassley to Sean Donovan, HUD Secretary here.  Link opens a PDF.

Property owners receiving the homestead tax credit — beware.  If you’re not actually living in the home, you’ll probably lose the credit, and owe the city back taxes.  And rightfully so.  However, we find it odd this article doesn’t give credit (no pun intended) where credit is due.  A resident is responsible for finding the city’s negligence, as documented here in an earlier article.

Kevin Pushia, a disgraced pastor and slumlord, was sentenced to life plus 45 years for his role in the murder of a mentally disabled man in Baltimore. You can read more about this “man of the cloth” here.

The FBI has released the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment report — interesting reading. You can see which gangs are active in each state here.

Richmond has two slots for tenant representatives on the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority Board of Commissioners, yet one of the slots remain unfilled.

New multi-family subsidized housing comes to Brewer’s Hill and O’Donnell Heights.

Residents are frustrated with the unfinished work by a City-hired contractor.  Considering his track record, we’re not surprised.

Link Roundup

Lead poisoning cases are down in Maryland, however — the number of cases linked to homes not covered by Maryland law is on the rise.  Sounds like it’s time to amend the law.

Speaking of lead paint — the venerable Kennedy Krieger Institute is being sued in a class-action lawsuit filed by Baltimore attorney Billy Murphy.  In the lawsuit, Murphy alleges Kennedy Krieger exposed poor black children to dangerous levels of lead.

Not only is Paul Graziano in the hot seat for refusing to pay settlements of lead paint cases, Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa would also like to know how Baltimore’s Housing Authority spent $67 million in federal stimulus money.  We’d like to know the answer to that, too.

Jamie Smith Hopkins reports the number of vacant homes in Maryland has increased by 35%, in Baltimore alone, the number rose by 10%.  Jamie also wrote a post about rents in Baltimore — and a number of commenters wondered if the high rents charged by landlords who own subsidized housing is skewing the average rent figures — In 2009, the Cato Institute brought this up in an article on federally subsidized housing:

Some landlords, in fact, specialize in Section 8, becoming experts at the complex regulations, and they skillfully work the system to their financial advantage. With Section 8 tenants, landlords don’t have to worry about nonpayment, because the government deposits its share of the rent—the lion’s share—directly into the property owner’s bank account. Moreover, for many buildings the government-paid rent is more than the market rent would be. The reason is that the program allows voucher holders to pay up to the average rent in their entire metropolitan area, and landlords in lower-income neighborhoods, where rents are below average, simply charge voucher holders exactly that average rent.

You can read the entire Cato Institute article here.

Are Corruption and Incompetence the Norm at HABC?

Andy Green at the Baltimore Sun has a great editorial in today’s Second Opinion, detailing the firing of corrupt HABC housing inspector Algie Epps, and the circumstances that led up to his firing:

When he was hired in 2005 as a housing inspector, the city does not appear to have conducted a “criminal history investigation” — a basic background check — that is required by law. Had it done one, or even performed a simple Google search, it would have found that he stood accused of falsifying sick leave forms while at the Department of Corrections and had been fired from that job as a result.

Mr. Epps failed to meet the education or experience requirements for any of the jobs he held at the housing department.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, according to the editorial — Epps also falsified his social security number and name — and was given a promotion.  But this still isn’t the worst of it — what really stands out is the response by Housing Commissioner Paul Graziano:

Housing Commissioner Paul Graziano wrote in his reply to Mr. McClintock’s report that the department should stop requiring housing inspectors to obtain special enforcement officer status, He lamented the need to fire Mr. Epps and suggested that the whole thing was prompted by complaints from “another agency that had been for years permitting the same to occur.” He also said that, given the applicant pool for entry-level jobs, the city has to recognize and accept “a varying degree of experience.”  (Emphasis ours)

A varying degree of experience, maybe.  Blatant fraud, never.  That may be acceptable to Mr. Graziano, and perhaps his continued tenure should be an agenda item for every person who decides to run for public office in Baltimore City.

You can read the full editorial here.

Teens Who Kept Dogs in Vacant Home Go to Trial

The Baltimore Sun recently reported that Travers and Tremayne Johnson, two teenagers who set a pit bull on fire, were scheduled to go to trial on animal cruelty charges Friday.  You probably remember the news coverage and public outrage about the treatment of Phoenix the pit bill, and the circumstances surrounding the case — the twins housed pit bulls in a vacant home located at 1616 N. Gilmor Street in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood.

Travers Johnson was also charged with several felonies, including attempted murder, stemming from an unrelated fight in the same neighborhood.  He is currently being held at the Baltimore City Jail.

Mobbies 2010

Please take a moment and vote for us as “Best Neighborhood Blog” in the Baltimore Sun’s Mobbies 2010 (scroll down to “Neighborhood”)!  Thanks!

What Part of “No” Do You Not Understand?

In the hopes that the third time is a charm, Charm City has sued Wells Fargo for the third time, according to the Baltimore Sun.

The latest complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, contains 14 new paragraphs that purport to address concerns that led Judge J. Frederick Motz to dismiss the case twice before — namely a lack of evidence that the mortgage lender was responsible for housing vacancies and millions of dollars in associated damages.

In the second dismissal, Motz asked the city to show why the properties would not “have been vacant in any event.” The new filing attempts to explain this through a general description of the ways in which lending to those who can’t afford the loan leads to foreclosure.

Hopefully this lawsuit will be once again thrown out (thank you, Judge Motz, for having the common sense to throw out the first two) and the City will be forced to clean up the housing mess on its own.  I’m picturing Wells Fargo’s attorneys laughing when reading “a general description of the ways in which lending to those who can’t afford the loan leads to foreclosure”.  Well how about those who can’t afford the loan shouldn’t have taken the loan?  And what about the “victims” who cheated the system — one of whom appears to not exist, by all accounts.

It will be interesting to see how Judge Motz will treat this third lawsuit — it will be even more interesting to see how many taxpayer dollars have been wasted on this effort.

Fraud, Foreclosure, and Fires: Link Roundup

Lots of people have been filling out phony mortgage forms — here’s the most recent mortgage scam artist in Maryland…and it didn’t work well for her.

Being a property flipper and tax cheat…that didn’t work well for this couple.

Who knew abandoned homes would be a burden on the fire department? (As an aside, there are close to 40,000 vacant structures in Baltimore City…not the 16,000 as reported in the article.  Out of that 40,000 the City owns approximately 12-15,000 of them.)  Unfortunately, fires in vacant homes occur often in Baltimore.  A man was injured in a vacant home fire earlier this month, and another vacant home was ablaze recently…thankfully nobody was injured.  Bottom line — you can’t begin to fix a problem until you can accept how serious it is.  Until there’s a serious shakeup in our City’s housing agency, and a comprehensive plan in place to deal with this problem — it will continue.  More homes will be lost, as will more lives.