For Immediate Release: December 6, 2024
Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership Contact: Emily Hovermale, 667-207-2167, ehovermale@brhp.org

Organization Strengthens Leadership with Expertise in Finance, Marketing, Planning, and Health

Baltimore, MD – The Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership (BRHP) is proud to announce the appointment of six new board members bringing diverse expertise in banking, public health, urban planning, and global marketing to its mission of expanding housing opportunities for low-income families in the Baltimore region. These leaders began their three-year terms on November 16, 2023, and November 21, 2024.

The new board members bring a wealth of experience and a shared dedication to advancing economic mobility, racial equity, and community impact. Their collective expertise reflects the organization’s commitment to addressing complex housing challenges with innovative solutions and strategic leadership.

New Board Members Appointed on November 16, 2023:

Krystal Billups, MPH, Executive Managing Director at Mosaic Group

Megan Haberle, Director of Community Development at Pioneer Valley Planning
Commission

Dwight McTizic, Investment Advisor at PNC Institutional Asset Management

New Board Members Appointed on November 21, 2024:

Ed Brown, Chief Financial Officer at St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore

Mykki Scott, Triage Specialist at Maryland State Office of Health Care Quality,
participant member

Steven C. Walker, Head of Global Marketing at GSK

“We are excited to welcome this exceptional group of leaders to the board of directors” said Joshua Civin, BRHP board director and chair. “Their unique perspectives and deep expertise will enhance our ability to serve the community and advance our mission of expanding housing opportunities for families in the region. We look forward to the impact they will have on our work.”

Adria Crutchfield, BRHP executive director added, “Our new board members bring the energy, vision, and commitment needed to deepen our efforts in creating equitable housing opportunities and building stronger communities. I am eager to collaborate with them to drive BRHP into a future of greater impact for our families, community, and nation.”

The new members join BRHP’s 17 existing board directors in guiding the organization’s strategic priorities, including rental assistance, housing mobility counseling, advocacy, and consulting services.

A full list of BRHP’s Board of Directors, visit BRHP’s website here.

### 

About the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership

The Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership (BRHP) is a non-profit organization that expands housing choices for families with low incomes who have historically been excluded from housing in well-resourced neighborhoods by helping them to access and transition successfully to safe, healthy, and economically vibrant communities. As the Regional Administrator for the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program, BRHP has opened pathways to a better future for low-income families for nearly 10 years. BRHP currently provides over 4,300 low-income families rental assistance in the form of Housing Choice Vouchers, coupling assistance with counseling support for families as they move from areas of concentrated poverty to areas of opportunity in Baltimore City and the five surrounding counties.

October 10 marked another BRHP In Conversation, this time with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Social Science Research Analyst Paul Joice joining BRHP Executive Director Adria Crutchfield to discuss Direct Rental Assistance (DRA) and the ways this innovative model for housing assistance could benefit recipients and landlords, as well as provide a deeper understanding of its origins and differentiation from similar cash assistance pilot programs of the past and present.

Paul Joice’s work involves researching ways to better address the needs of low-income families across the county, and his research has been published in Cityscape, the journal published by the HUD office of Policy Development and Research. Joice led the audience through a primer on Direct Rental Assistance, answering the questions below.  

What is Direct Rental Assistance?

While Direct Rental Assistance can come in many forms and models, in general it is the direct payment of rental assistance to the tenant, rather than to the landlord, modeling the traditional landlord-tenant payment relationship in the free market. Not a standard or universally available assistance model currently, DRA is an experimental concept that is in the process of being tested as a way to provide rental assistance while empowering tenants and removing administrative barriers inherent to current programs.  

What are the origins of the Direct Rental Assistance model?

Direct Rental Assistance has its origins in the 1970s when HUD tested the Experimental Housing Allowance Program (EHAP). EHAP aimed to test various models of housing assistance including direct payments to tenants.

Before fully testing different models, HUD settled on the Section 8 Voucher program as their primary funding model for rental assistance, which remains in effect today as the
modern-day Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. Just this year, HUD and Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) celebrated the 50th anniversary of the HCV program, which has been widely acknowledged as an effective program for reducing rent burden, overcrowding, homelessness, and housing instability.

In what ways is Direct Rental Assistance like the Housing Choice Voucher Program?

The Housing Choice Voucher program and Direct Rental Assistance are like close relatives to each other, both aimed at providing assistance to low-income families searching for or retaining housing. What makes the two programs different is that, unlike the HCV program, a participant receiving assistance through DRA would receive the housing assistance payment directly to pay their landlord or property management, removing the PHA or voucher administrator from the relationship between the tenant and landlord. Currently, PHAs send payments to landlords according to a Housing Assistance Payment Contract.

 

What are the potential benefits of Direct Rental Assistance for landlords or prospective tenants?

As Joice notes, “Voucher recipients face the additional barrier of finding units that meet voucher program requirements and are owned by landlords willing to participate in the program.”

DRA has the potential to open the door for tenants who might have otherwise not been able to successfully use a voucher before it expires. Nearly 40% of current HCV recipients fail to successfully use their vouchers with issues of discrimination, limited landlord participation, and limited housing stock being the most common challenges that these tenants face. Direct Rental Assistance can give families more flexibility in choosing where to live by negating some of the common issues above, potentially reducing segregation and allowing access to better neighborhood schools.

Landlords could benefit from DRA through reduced administrative burdens to participate, saving time and additional resources, as well as opening a larger pool of potential tenants, including those who might not have traditional income sources but still need housing.

Would receiving cash assistance through Direct Rental Assistance be considered income, meaning would it impact any other government assistance one may have?

The IRS determined that Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) payments to eligible households during the pandemic should not be considered income. Joice advises that collaboration between providers and including a housing requirement—requiring that DRA be used for housing, requiring the recipient to provide a lease, and setting the subsidy not to exceed the recipient’s rent—should ensure that DRA is considered housing assistance rather than general income.

When could we expect Direct Rental Assistance to be implemented on a greater scale?

Although not completely new, Direct Rental Assistance is under consideration for piloting in many housing programs around the country. From these pilots, evaluators would summarize outcomes and lessons learned to share with HUD for further consideration of DRA on a larger scale.   

Currently, Direct Rental Assistance is not a provided form of assistance in the BRHP Housing Mobility Program, though a pilot program sometime in the future is being considered.

Want to catch the full conversation? Take a moment to watch the full replay on our YouTube channel!

Still curious?

Read more of Paul Joice’s research with HUD’s Cityscape here: Direct Rental Assistance: Returning to the Roots of Housing Allowances

Also check out our previous In Conversation with Dr. Kathryn Anne Edwards, detailing the importance of affordable and quality childcare for families in the United States: BRHP In Conversation: Dr. Kathryn Anne Edwards on the Childcare Crisis

*Views expressed during the BRHP In Conversation are those of the speakers and not necessarily U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development official policies or positions.

Written by — Phillip Clark, Communications Associate

On Thursday, July 25, 2024, HUD’s Office of Policy Development & Research (PD&R) hosted a hybrid PD&R Quarterly Update on source of income discrimination and laws. Over the past two decades, evidence of discrimination against housing choice voucher holders has grown. More than half of voucher households live in states and localities that have adopted ordinances to prevent this kind of discrimination.

Check out this Source of Income Protections for Housing Choice Voucher Holders website from HUD’s Office of Public and Indian Housing to see where SOI protections already exist and get information on how communities can adopt source of income protections.

Photos from the 07/25/2024 PD&R Meeting – Taken for HUD by photographer Jennifer E. Miller

Visit HUD’s Flickr for more images of the PD&R Quarterly Update.

Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership’s Housing Mobility Program serves over 4,300 families and approximately 8,000 children, helping these families move from areas of concentrated poverty to resource-rich communities in areas of opportunity. Many of the children in our program benefit not only from higher quality housing, but better health and access to robust educational opportunities with all of the lifelong benefits these improved resources provide. Studies consistently demonstrate that when families with young children move from high-poverty areas to resource-rich neighborhoods, their children end up having higher incomes and are less likely to live in high-poverty areas as adults.

Since 2020, BRHP has held a Back-to-School Supply Drive every August leading up to the new school year. With four years of successful events, we have recognized the ongoing need for and importance of school supplies for our families. This year, we organized our biggest Back-to-School Supply effort yet, raising over $10,000 in donations, and allocating an additional $12,000 from BRHP’s budget, to reach over 400 families with 858 backpacks full of supplies.

The Impact of Quality School Supplies

Access to school supplies at the beginning of the school year can have a profound impact on children and families, providing needed confidence and increasing engagement in school. At the same time, school supply costs have never been higher. The National Retail Federation, which has been conducting annual surveys on back-to-school consumer spending since 2003, expects back-to-school spending to reach $39B in 2024, a $13B increase from 2019. The expected spending per household for 2024 is $875, a $178 increase from 2019.

63% of students, or nearly 2 out of 3 children, arrive to school on the first day without the supplies they need.

Kids in Need Foundation – 2021 Impact Report

Without access to quality school supplies, students miss out on the benefits of fully participating in their school opportunities. In the 2021 Kids in Need Foundation Impact Report, based on data from interviews with over 10,000 public-school teachers across the country, educators reported that 63% of students, or nearly 2 out of 3 children, arrive to school on the first day without the supplies they need. Teachers in the study reported that in response to having access to needed school supply, students demonstrated an 87% increase in preparedness, 77% increase in in-class participation and a 70% increase in student confidence. In Maryland, data from The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF)’s 2024 Kids Count® Data Profile underscores the acute investment needed to support children in our state, with data showing 12% of Maryland children live in poverty and 30% live in a household with a high housing cost burden, making it more challenging for families to afford needed school items.

Providing quality school supplies not only has an impact on students, but on the teachers who educate them. Data from the Maryland State Education Association, which conducted a poll of 2800+ Maryland public school educators last year, found that 90% of Maryland educators have purchased school supplies out of their own pockets, up from 88 percent in 2019. In 2024, similar to the rise of U.S. household back-to-school spending, teachers throughout the country are projected to spend over $800 out of their own pockets on supplies for their classroom, based on information provided by the National Education Association, a labor union representing public school administration, teachers, faculty and staff. Helping families access the supplies they need also decreases this burden on our educators.

There is nothing that could have been done better, it (the supply drive) was right on time and definitely needed. Thank you BRHP.

Melody H., BRHP Housing Mobility Program Participant

Reinvesting in Our Communities

Our entire organization pulled together to sort and pack over 30,000 pounds of supplies, including about 100 children’s books, and transport them throughout the community. Thanks to this effort, we were able to provide families in our Housing Mobility Program with supplies designed to last them through the year at five different locations throughout our service area, helping ensure that families across the region were able to take advantage of the distribution.

This campaign would not have been possible without the libraries in our opportunity areas that opened their doors to us for supply distributions. We would like to thank the library branches that provided us space to distribute backpacks to families: Baltimore County Public Library – Owings Mills, Baltimore County Public Library – Towson, Anne Arundel County Public Library – Odenton Branch, and Howard County Public Library System – Central Branch; without the help and welcoming spaces these libraries provided, the community distribution would not have been possible.

As our campaign ends and schools start to open, we will be analyzing the feedback from BRHP families and finding ways to make an even more meaningful event next year. Thank you again to everyone who made this event a success and to our families, have a great, safe start to your school year!

Written by — Phillip Clark, Communications Associate

Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership (BRHP) offers GAIN to selected families in our Housing Mobility program as a means to help voucher holders attain financial goals. GAIN, short for “Growing Assets And Income”, is a Family Self-Sufficiency program, to help BRHP families increase their income and savings while in our program. Participants work with a financial coach to establish and achieve their financial goals, receiving monetary incentives when they achieve milestones in education, career, financial health, and homeownership. Payments are deposited in an interest-bearing escrow account to grow their savings.

Programs like GAIN are meant to reduce dependency on assisted housing by rewarding goal achievement, and GAIN can help participants receive incentives of up to $8,000 as they work towards their goals. The program is limited to 250 households who have applied and been selected to participate. We’re excited to celebrate our first GAIN program graduate, Ms. Breon H, for her achievements in meeting her financial goals and not only graduating the GAIN program after 8 months working on her goals, but exiting the Housing Mobility program with the purchase of her new home in Annapolis, MD. Our Special Projects Coordinator recently interviewed Breon about her accomplishments.

BRHP: How has our program benefited you and/or your family?
 
BH: I think the program mainly benefited me, just helping me save money. I actually graduated the program by being able to purchase a home, so it helped me a lot with saving money with my new home.

BRHP: Share with us some of the things you were able to accomplish personally and professionally while in our program.

BH: It helped me with a more stable career because I had a more stable home and a more stable family life for me and my daughter. And now I have two more children, so for me and my children, it definitely created a stable household. Financially, it helped me build my credit, everything, it just benefited me in every way possible.

BRHP: What do you think are some long-term impacts being a part of our program will have on your family?
 
BH: Benefits are long-term stability; my credit score is through the roof, but it’s always been like that because I’ve been a part of this program; it helped me save my money.

BRHP: Would you recommend our program to others?

BH: Yes, I would definitely recommend it. It gives you a boost on life. I started when I was 21. I was able to get my first unit with BRHP, and it’s only been up since then.

BRHP: Is there anything else you would like us to know about your experience?

BH: I can only say wonderful things about this program. It has only helped my life and my daughter’s life, it’s lovely. We were in an area I wanted to live in close to my grandmother because she was my support system. The school that my daughter was in was wonderful, and I just loved everything about it. I was so sad to go, but I had to graduate at some point, and I’m happy GAIN put me in a position to graduate from not only the [Housing Choice Voucher] program but the GAIN program as well.


BRHP is proud to have played a role in helping Breon and more like them reach their goals and thrive.

Follow us on social media as we cover more program participant experiences and successes with BRHP on Instagram and X (formerly known as Twitter)!

Written by — Phillip Clark, Communications Associate