Maryland’s new screening and rent reporting rules create important protections and responsibilities for voucher holders, tenants, and landlords. These resources explain what changes under Maryland General Assembly legislation HB 315/SB 335, including limits on using credit and income screening to deny applicants with housing subsidies, new positive rent reporting opportunities for tenants, and compliance steps landlords should take before the law takes effect on October 1, 2026. Review the handouts below to understand your rights, responsibilities, and next steps.

HB-315-LL-Compliance_Handout.pdf-1.pdf

HB-315-KYR-Participant_Handout.pdf-2.pdf

HB-315-KYR-Participant_Handout.pdf-3.pdf

Opportunity areas with rich resources that focus on career and educational development, mental health, self-empowerment, and learning life skills are crucial to the positive upward mobility that is at the heart of the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program. As we connect our families and their children to diverse resources in their new communities, we see the improved outcomes that come from engaging in programs that motivate them to their full capabilities, foster success, and pour into the next generation.

Written by: Savanah Winn, Communications Associate

When families in the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program move into opportunity neighborhoods for the first time, they look for the best environment and support, not only for them, but for their families. Opportunity areas provide quality education, green spaces, family and youth support, and economic mobility that our participants can experience firsthand when searching for opportunity. 

Research reveals that resource-rich opportunity areas constitute an essential pillar supporting families’ social and economic mobility, providing access to quality education, steady employment, healthcare, and safety. 

With BRHP’s housing mobility services, we offer pre- and post-move support geared toward preparing our families for the best experiences with their new move to opportunity areas. Our pre-move services provide participants with housing search assistance, lease-up workshops and, after our families move into their new home, they can access ongoing services like landlord mediation to receive continued support toward successful tenancies.

This month, we are celebrating resource-rich neighborhoods and spotlighting resources and activities in opportunity areas across the region.Each opportunity area offers BRHP families something different.

Whatever obstacles they may face, families in the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program have the resources to succeed. Highlighted resources can be found below for each opportunity area: 

Written by: Savanah Winn, Communications Associate

A community is not only defined by the way it looks but also by what it encompasses. The environment of a community is impacted by social, political, and structural factors, and where you live matters. Neighborhoods that have high poverty, limited green space, pollution and unhealthy food environments can greatly impact a family’s, especially children’s, overall health. These systemic barriers can affect families physically and mentally, causing higher rates of asthma, obesity, and physical and emotional stress.  

Housing and family health research continuously supports the need for expanded housing access in combination with public health approaches that provide safe and healthy housing for families with children. 

At the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership (BRHP), we believe this is one of the many reasons why opportunity areas are important. In addition to providing access to improved health outcomes, opportunity areas have quality schools, low-poverty rates, employment opportunities, and many other factors that make them well situated for any family. A now-published study by economists Dionissi Aliprantis and Stefani DeLuca, Unlocking Opportunity – The Remarkable Success of the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership, reveals that families participating in the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program move from neighborhoods ranked among the lowest in the region to communities with dramatically higher socioeconomic status (SES) while also gaining access to better performing schools and more integrated communities. 

Importantly, when families move to opportunity areas, they can positively impact their health and wellbeing.  

Our Healthy Children Voucher Demonstration (HCD) Program is a partnership between BRHP, the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, Johns Hopkins University and health care providers. Its purpose is to enhance the wellbeing of families through health-focused housing mobility, serving up to 150 Baltimore City families with children and helping them make moves to better quality housing that improve their health outcomes.

“It has been more than a pleasure aiding our HCD participants with moving into opportunity areas with ample resources that benefit their families. These communities provide better employment opportunities, community resources, after-school programs, summer enrichment for children, and mental health resources as well,” shares JaNay DeVaughn, Client Services Navigator at BRHP. 

Voicing her joy in working with families in the HCD program, JaNay reflects, “The reactions I have experienced from our families have been nothing but positive! Parents feel like they can provide a better quality of life for their children and provide for them in ways they thought they never could. The impact is outstanding and I love being the person to advocate for our participants and assist them on this journey.”  

Recently, BRHP staff attended the Housing Is Summit convened by the Council of Large Public Health Authorities (CLPHA), presenting on the HCD program with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health researchers Craig Pollack and Laken Roberts. The workshop session discussed the research findings of the Mobility Asthma Project (MAP), which demonstrated the improved health impacts associated with moving to a new opportune neighborhood, and how this inspired the development of the HCD program. The ensuing partnerships between housing and healthcare providers in the Baltimore region continues with the HCD program today, assisting families in their move to healthier neighborhoods to improve the health of their children. 

Families deserve environments that satisfy their needs in all areas of their lives. Whether it is health, education, or economically, opportunity areas can help families succeed.

BRHP staff alongside Craig Pollack and Laken Roberts at the Housing Is Summit convened by the CLPHA.

Written by: Savanah Winn, Communications Associate

At the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership (BRHP), we see every day what stable housing makes possible. When families have a safe, affordable place to call home, children succeed in school, parents advance in their careers, health improves, and futures begin to open up. 

That’s why we are proud to celebrate the passage of HB 315 / SB 335, a landmark piece of legislation, introduced by Delegate Vaughn Stewart (D-19) and Senator Sara Love (D-16), that strengthens Maryland’s fair housing laws by ending harmful credit-based screening practices for tenants who use income-based housing subsidies, including Housing Choice Vouchers. 

This law brings Maryland closer to fulfilling the promise of the HOME Act and ensures that housing assistance can actually be used by the families it is meant to serve. 

We work closely with families as they search for housing, and we hear the same story again and again. Even with guaranteed rental assistance, families are routinely denied housing because of credit screening requirements that have nothing to do with their ability to pay rent. 

Credit scores were designed to predict repayment of loans. They rarely include rental payment history and often reflect periods of instability that occurred before a household received housing assistance. For voucher holders, this is especially problematic. Public housing authorities and other voucher administrators already verify income, determine affordability, cap tenant rent contributions to 30% of income, and adjust subsidies when income changes. In practice, vouchers significantly reduce risk and create remarkably stable tenancies. 

Yet rigid credit screening has continued to block assisted families from accessing housing, regardless of their qualifications and the stability created by the housing subsidy. These practices have contributed to declining voucher success rates in Maryland, even after source-of-income protections were enacted.

HB 315 / SB 335 provides a narrow, practical solution that aligns tenant screening with reality. It ensures that screening criteria are relevant to assisted housing and grounded in real indicators of tenancy success.

Under the new law: 
-Housing providers may not deny tenants with income -based housing subsidies based solely on a credit score or lack of a credit score. 
-Providers may not rely on negative credit events from before a household began receiving assistance, which can be determined by the voucher provider. 
-Landlords may continue to screen for rental history, lease compliance, eviction records, tenant portion of income, nuisance behavior, and property damage. 

In plain terms, the law asks landlords to focus on what matters most: factors that indicate whether rent is likely to be paid, rather than irrelevant information that does not reflect the current financial stability provided by the housing subsidy. 

The passage of this legislation was driven in large part by the lived experiences of families in programs like ours. They are mothers working multiple jobs, students completing nursing and software engineering programs, survivors of homelessness and domestic violence, caregivers managing health crises, and parents doing everything possible to provide stability for their children. These women bravely shared their stories again and again with policymakers, standing in as representatives for thousands of families around the state. As Kiarra G., one of our participants, powerfully shared during a hearing on the legislation, “I had horrible credit; not because I was careless, but because I was never taught the importance of responsible credit use, and because loss of work and homelessness took a toll that followed me on paper.”   

Housing Choice Voucher holders make up a small percentage of Maryland renters, but the impact of stable housing is far-reaching. Families remain housed, landlords receive reliable rent payments, and communities benefit from reduced displacement and increased opportunity. For individual families, housing stability is the foundation that leads to brighter futures. 

As Kiarra shared, “Getting housing through BRHP wasn’t just about a roof over our heads. It gave us stability. It gave us the breathing room to rebuild. For the first time, I was finally able to provide my daughter with the kind of life I wanted her to have.” 

Kiarra testifying at the HB 315 hearing

HB 315 / SB 335 recognizes what we see every day: housing assistance works when families are allowed to use it. 

At BRHP, we remain committed to working with housing providers, policymakers, and partners across the state to support thoughtful implementation of this law and to expand access to safe, stable housing in communities of opportunity. 

When families are given a fair chance at housing, they build stronger futures and stronger communities for us all. 

For the full list of the legislation BRHP supported in the 2026 Legislative Session and its outcome, click here. 

By Emily Hovermale, External Affairs Director 

Where you grow up matters. Decades of research show that neighborhoods shape children’s chances in life, from education and health to income and long-term stability. Yet in many American cities, including Baltimore, low-income Black families with children are still far more likely to live in neighborhoods with fewer resources, struggling schools, and limited opportunity. 

A new study by economist Dionissi Aliprantis and sociologist Stefanie DeLuca, Unlocking Opportunity – The Remarkable Success of the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership, takes a deep look at how the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnerships’ housing mobility program is breaking this pattern. The findings are striking and offer important lessons for cities across the country. 

The Baltimore Housing Mobility Program (BHMP) is administered by the Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership to help low-income families, most of whom are Black and originally live in highly racially and economically segregated Baltimore City neighborhoods, use housing vouchers coupled with support services to move to areas with stronger schools, lower poverty, and more opportunity. 

Participants in the program can search across Baltimore City and the five surrounding counties, ensuring access to the greatest number of opportunity neighborhoods in the region.  The program adapts the traditional HCV program to optimize client successful lease-up in opportunity neighborhoods through extended search times, setting payment standards per census tract, and providing unit referrals at voucher issuance. The program also provides hands-on support, including housing search assistance, counseling before and after the move, and active outreach to landlords.

The results show that the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program is working exceptionally well. BRHP delivers the largest neighborhood-quality gains among housing mobility programs studied. Families commonly move from ~30% to ~5% neighborhood poverty, a shift from the 5th to the 77th percentile of the national neighborhood-poverty ranking, and within Maryland into some of the highest scoring socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods.  

BRHP disrupts entrenched racial and income sorting. In contrast to standard housing patterns in Baltimore and nationally, BRHP households do not follow predictable sorting by race or income. Participants live in neighborhoods with socioeconomic status on par with the highest-income Black households in the region and in neighborhoods that are more racially integrated than those of Black households at any income level. 

Access to higher performing schools rises dramatically. On average, BRHP participants live in areas zoned for elementary schools performing ~40 percentile points higher than those zoned to low-income Black families in Baltimore City.  

Regional design is the key driver. 66-70% of BRHP’s participants accessing high SES-neighborhoods- over comparable groups is explained by cross-county moves that allow access to the region’s full range of opportunity census tracts.  

Why this matters: Historically, Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) households tend to lease in neighborhoods only modestly higher in opportunity than other poor households, and often near lower performing schools. BRHP breaks that pattern at scale: families lease in neighborhoods ranked substantially higher in socioeconomic status (SES) and access markedly higher performing schools, with gains that persist across subsequent moves. This approach helps families realize the original intention of the Housing Choice Voucher program created 52 years ago – expanding residential choice regardless of economic means. 

What BRHP achieves 
–In 2022, BRHP participants lived in tracts with Neighborhood SES ≈ 60 versus 23 for Black non-BRHP HCV households in Baltimore City (+37 points), and versus 15 for poor Black Baltimore City residents (+45 points).  

–Assigned elementary schools for BRHP families are at the 49th percentile in performance statewide (ELA + Math average on the Maryland School Report Card), compared with the 12th percentile (Black HCV Baltimore City) and 10^th percentile (poor Black Baltimore City).  

–Relative to the broader rental market, BRHP families move into higher-SES neighborhoods (median SES 62 for BRHP participants vs 54 for all rental units and 33 for HCV households in Baltimore City). Rents paid are broadly in line with market rents at higher SES levels, indicating access without overpayment.  

Why the regional model matters 
Opportunity rental supply is concentrated outside Baltimore City; only about one-fifth of rental units in “opportunity neighborhoods” (top SES deciles) are in the city itself. The regional footprint lets families reach all opportunity tracts and higher-performing school districts.  

Oaxaca-Blinder decompositions show two-thirds of BRHP’s neighborhood-SES gains come from between-county mobility, not just better sorting within a single county.  

Breaking typical segregation patterns 
BRHP households live in neighborhoods with SES comparable to those of the highest-income Black households in the region, despite much lower household incomes, evidence that the program disrupts standard sorting by race and income.  

Neighborhoods that BRHP families choose are more racially integrated than those of Black households at any income level (mean BRHP tract ≈ 34% Black, lower than the share in neighborhoods of the region’s highest- and lowest-income Black households).  

Durability over time 
Gains persist: second (and later) moves remain in high-SES tracts. Households initially moving into lower-Black-share tracts are slower to leave and tend to choose similarly composed neighborhoods when they do move.  

A hopeful takeaway 
Residential segregation and concentrated poverty did not happen by accident and will not disappear overnight. This research offers rare and convincing evidence that well-designed policy intervention can make a material difference. 

The Baltimore Regional Housing Partnership shows that expanding choice across neighborhoods, across jurisdictions, and across lines of race and income can unlock opportunity where it matters most: in the everyday lives of families and children. 

This research will continue with a second phase further investigating the long-term outcomes for BHMP families living in opportunity areas.  

By Emily Hovermale, External Affairs Director, BRHP