Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Ervin: ‘We’re turning on a faucet and only letting some drops drip out of the faucet, and then we’re pretending like that’s good enough.’
Officials, advocates and the community at large need to shed outdated ideas about the long-hailed strength of Montgomery’s affordable housing programs, councilmembers say, and come up with concrete plans that work effectively. More than a year in the making, the Department of Housing and Community Affairs has drafted a 100-page housing policy—the first update since 2001—that puts a priority on: Councilmembers want to make sure the county does not rest on the laurels of decades past, when initiatives like the MPDU program LINK made Montgomery a pioneer in affordable housing. “Before we start patting ourselves on the back and congratulating ourselves for all the wonderful things we’ve done, we still have to recognize that Montgomery County…
Monday, November 12, 2012
County Council will hold eight public hearings and introduce three pieces of legislation on Tuesday.
The Montgomery County Council is set to take up its vision for a new housing policy, declare its position on this year's request for school construction funding, and introduce a bill to rewrite the fee structure for mitigating the traffic and school-population impacts of new developments. Tuesday's weekly meeting is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. in the Council hearing room at 100 Maryland Ave., Rockville, MD. Call 240-777-7803 to testify. The meeting is also televised live on CCM Channels Comcast 6, RCN 6, Verizon 30. For more information, go to www.montgomerycountymd.gov/council. See the full agenda here. A NEW VISION ON HOUSING The Council will be briefed on the 2012 update to Montgomery County’s Housing Policy. The draft policy—finished …
Monday, May 7, 2012
At a housing summit Monday, local and federal officials recognized the need for more affordable housing in Montgomery County.
Nearly 26,500 people in Montgomery County are waiting for assistance to receive a housing voucher or placement in public housing, according to officials who spoke Monday at the Affordable Housing Summit of Montgomery County. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) also reported that there are more than 700 homeless veterans living in the DC metro region. The numbers are only expected to grow as nearly a million veterans return from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to officials. The Housing Choice Vouchers, formerly known as Section 8, allow for low-income residents to find affordable housing in the private sector, while public housing is run by the Housing Opportunities Commission and funded by taxpayer dollars. Montgomery …
Thursday, June 16, 2011
In the third and last of our series on condemned houses, two homeowners are trying to renovate a house destroyed by a fire, amid questions about whether they set it in the first place.
This week, Wheaton Patch is looking behind the doors of houses in the area that have been condemned. Today, we look at the story of a house condemned by fire, and how the loss, compounded by foreclosure, affected the homeowners. For the entire series, click here It was late when Gurja Asmeret went to sleep on a summer evening in 2007. After working her second job and arriving home at midnight, she fell asleep on her couch. Her son Ermias slept nearby. Her husband, Mesfin Kiflu, was at work at his job as a night security guard in Washington, D.C. Suddenly, her chest felt tight. “When I open my eye, I could not see. I could not breathing. The house was dark,” she said recently, recalling that night in July. Their house on Claridge Road was …
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
What happens to a house in Montgomery County when it's condemned? It's not so simple, and rarely is the outcome resolved quickly.
When Jackie Familia and her husband moved into her new house, they found a cracked, rusted pipe underneath the family-room floor. It was the main sewage line from the house, so any time someone flushed a toilet, raw sewage would bubble up from underneath the floorboards. Familia was shocked, but not necessarily surprised. She and her husband had bought a house that was previously condemned by Montgomery County and had gone into foreclosure. Condemnation — a word that brings to mind scary haunted house tours and broken windows — can actually mean a variety of things are wrong with a house in Montgomery County. If a fire destroys a key portion of a house, making it structurally unsafe, the fire department works with the Department of Housing…
In the first of our series on condemned houses in the area, an elderly woman wants to stay in her house, regardless of its state.
This week, Wheaton Patch is looking behind the doors of houses in the area that have been condemned. Today, we look at a Kemp Mill resident who wants to stay in her home, regardless of its condition. Tomorrow, we will tell the story of a successful turnaround of a once-unlivable house. For the entire series, click here. Barbara Syska was at home on Fairoak Drive caring for her husband with Alzheimer’s the first time an inspector for the Montgomery County Department of Housing and Community Affairs came to her house, and she wasn’t sure what to do. When she opened the door, she thinks the inspector saw a broken pipe inside. “I started to explain I had a contract to replace it,” she said. “Maybe they did not understand me. I was nervous.” …
Kim Cooke
8:05 pm on Friday, November 23, 2012
Well said, Mr. Hydorn. more ›