Engagement in our Fair Housing Study
Engagement in our Fair Housing Study
We, as local governments and public housing authorities in the Baltimore region, are teaming up to improve life and increase opportunities for people in their homes and communities, and our draft plan for 2025-2030 is out for public comment through February 28!
Please visit BMC's Analysis of Impediments page to see the full draft report and for more information on our February 18 virtual public hearing and on submitting comments.
You can also scroll down for more info on this process and on the three large stakeholder meetings we have held since May 2024.
About the Fair Housing Act and Plan
Congress passed the Fair Housing Act in 1968 to address housing discrimination and historical unfair policies. This included redlining, segregation, and other 20th century discriminatory policies that kept people from investments and opportunities because of their race, religion, or nationality.
Because of this, every five years, we must:
Examine data to see if people in our region face unequal access to jobs, education, health, and communities with low poverty. We look to see if that inequality corresponds to characteristics protected by fair housing laws. This includes race, having a disability, what country you come from, your religion, your gender, and if you have children.
See if policies under our control or influence could still be contributing to these disparities, even if by mistake. If so, these policies can be considered "impediments to fair housing choice."
Create action steps to address any of those policies and impediments.
Put those action steps in our 2025-2030 plans for using federal housing funds, and then we take action. (Now we are implementing our 2020-2025 plans.)
Our 2025 Fair Housing Plan is now posted for public comment through February 28. After considering those comments and making any needed changes to the draft, we will finalize this plan in March.
Dan Pontious, BMC Housing Policy Coordinator
(410) 732-0500 x1055
Virtual Public Hearing for Draft 2025 Fair Housing Plan
This is the regional public hearing for comments on the draft 2025 Fair Housing Plan for the Baltimore Region, also known as the Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice (AI). After a short presentation, attendees will be able to share their feedback for the Baltimore Regional Fair Housing Group. Additional comments are welcome through February 28 by email to housing@baltometro.org. More info and the draft plan are available here.
Register in advance for this meeting:
https://baltometro-org.zoom.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
Click on the "Files" button below for the agenda and slides that will be shown at this meeting.
- Fair Housing Plan Public Hearing Agenda 18Feb2025_837f5d3c.pdf
- Fair Housing Plan Public Hearing Slides 18Feb2025_0e085fc8.pdf
Third Meeting: Baltimore-Area Fair Housing Study
A total of 64 people joined us for our third large stakeholder meeting for this study -- 36 in person over a delicious lunch from Chef Jamila Wright at the Harriet Tubman Cultural Center, and 28 over Zoom. We reviewed our timeline for finishing this study as well as progress on our 2020 analysis goals for publicly supported housing. We also saw new data on recent housing production and also how publicly assisted housing compares with our new opportunity map. We heard reports from our three Working Groups, including initial action step suggestions from our Enforcement and Renters groups. Finally we heard the topline findings of recent opinion research on housing and transportation funded by the Baltimore Regional Transportation Board.
You can watch the Zoom recording of this meeting here. Click on the "Files button below for the agenda and slides from this meeting.
Second Meeting: Baltimore-Area Fair Housing Study
Thanks to the 59 people who joined this second virtual large stakeholder meeting for this study. We saw our updated opportunity map and the latest data on fair-housing-related disparities in the region, saw initial maps and figures from Root Policy Research's analysis of zoning and land use in the region, heard updates from our topic-specific small groups, and talked about next steps.
Click on the "Files" button below for the agenda and materials from this meeting.
- Second Meeting Agenda 17July2024_aa1fab39.pdf
- Second Meeting Slides 17July 2024_3993f28a.pdf
- Land Use by Acres_all jurisdictions_239595b0.xlsx
- Balt-area_high_density_zoning_maps_566c8fc9.pdf
- Enforcement Mechanisms and Protected Classes_4674d5d3.xlsx
- Fair Housing Plan Public Hearing Agenda 18Feb2025.pdf
- Fair Housing Plan Public Hearing Slides 18Feb2025.pdf
Kickoff Meeting: Baltimore-Area Fair Housing Study
Thanks to the 68 people who joined us for the first meeting for the 2025 Baltimore-Area Fair Housing Study! We went over our proposed process for developing this study and shared initial data. We also introduced our main consultant, Root Policy Research, our other partners, Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership and Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, and the co-chairs for our working groups. Our slides for this meeting are posted at the in the "Files" tab below, along with a draft resident survey and the results from a similar survey we conducted for our 2020 document.
Please fill out the survey above if you are interested in participating in a small working group and/or have suggestions of organizations we should talk with as we conduct this study.