The term for the Housing Authority of the City of Annapolis board chair expired at the end of July but Sandra Chapman said she expects to be reappointed.
Chapman, who is a resident of the Morris H. Blum housing property, has been part of the board for five years and for three years has been the chairperson. The seven-person Board of Commissioners manages day-to-day operations of the housing authority, which oversees public housing in the city.
The mayor nominates board members to serve five-year terms, and the City Council approves those nominations. The board currently only has five members including Chapman.
According to the spokeswoman for the city, Mayor Gavin Buckley will review appointments for the board and commissions at the end of every month. She did not confirm if he plans on reappointing Chapman.
Chapman said the board has come a long way since she joined.
“When I first got on the board, we got all our things audited by HUD and things weren’t at its best,” Chapman said. “We still have problems but the problems are nothing compared to what it was when we first started.”
In 2016, federal officials audited the housing authority to determine if the organization spent grant money to lift public housing residents out of poverty. Once it was cleared, Chapman said the housing authority focused on maintaining the properties despite the challenges.
“The upkeep of the property is better though we have a long way to go,” she said. “When you have properties as old as they are and they are not kept up, you expect low (inspection) scores but we are working on that and improving it.”
If reappointed, Chapman wants to continue focusing on redevelopment.
“With the redevelopment plan that we have all we can do is look towards the future for things to be better than they were,” she said. “I see a brighter future for public housing.”
The agency plans to redevelop Newtowne 20 and with the help of programs through Housing and Urban Development for Section 18 federal subsidies, which can be used for obsolete properties, and 4% tax credits. Earlier this summer, a Maryland agency that reviews applications for the 4% tax credits confirmed that an application for Newtowne 20 was submitted.
The property, made up of 78 units, will be demolished and rebuilt in 2020 with an incorporation of funds including tax credits, grants, state and federal programs.
Other officials like Alderman DaJuan Gay, Ward-6, said he looks forward to possible appointments from the mayor in September for him and other City Council members to review before approval. Gay, whose district is made up of many residents of public housing, said he would hope Buckley’s appointees will understand the neighborhoods and the people who live in them.
“I am not interested in rubber stamping. I would like to see what they would like to do in the next term,” he said. In particular, he would like to see an appointee who reviews topics like affordable housing, crime reduction and economic opportunities.
If she is re-appointed, then her time as chairperson will come to an end in January because the authority’s bylaws prohibit a person to be chair after three consecutive years, she said. Even so, Chapman said she will continue to work to help public housing.
“I hope to still be a board member and continue working for the betterment of the residents whether I am appointed to the board or not, I am still a resident of public housing so I will still be very much involved,” she said.
Recently, the housing authority has been the target of a few lawsuits. In May, nearly 30 residents sued the agency and the city for deplorable living conditions and claiming decades of racial discrimination. Last week, an Anne Arundel County District Court judge dismissed hundreds of pending failure to pay rent cases against residents of the housing authority and found that the agency was not allowed to use an expedited eviction process since it is not a licensed landlord.
