Vacant Property Initiative 4 - More funding for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund Council bill 22-0259
In 2016 residents and advocates worked hard to gather over 10,000 signatures to change the charter to allow the Baltimore City Council to create fundings sources and direct the funds to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. I am honored to be one of those advocates and want to thank the members of this body who supported the measure. Our goal at the time was to find a funding source to generate $20million per year for affordable housing initiatives, including transforming vacant properties into affordable homeownership.
In 2018 the funding source was established, thanks to Councilman Bullock and our colleagues in the Council at the time. It is an additional yield tax on transfers and recordations on transactions above $1million. In 2019, that generated $5.5 million, in 2020 that generated $6.5million, and in 2021 that generated over $16million. While we believe this year will be a record year because of the very active housing market, it is likely not to be as strong in the coming years, and yet the demand for affordable housing continues to increase.
We have to be ready for that time, which is why I’m putting this bill in today. It lowers the threshold from transactions over $1mllion to $750,000 so that the yield tax will apply to more real property transactions.
The Affordable Housing Trust Fund is designed to assist in funding affordable rental units, affordable homeownership units, rental assistance, home repair and other initiatives for individuals and families who are 50% or below area median income. This set of people in our City are extremely housing insecure - who pay over 50% of their income on housing costs.
The affordable housing crisis is not going away. We absolutely need to be thinking about how we maintain this funding source and grow it. Federal rental assistance from ARPA is ending at the end of the year, and yet there is no end in sight for people needing assistance to avoid eviction. Elders continue to call about needing repairs to their homes. The rental market in Baltimore is booming, but there is no affordability.
The AHTF was also designed to help us eliminate vacant and abandoned housing by transforming it into affordable homeownership and rental. This is one of my initiatives listed in my letter to Mayor Scott about vacant and abandoned housing - we need more money to address this issue and this bill is one step in that direction.