HCCA March Membership Meeting
7:30 PM Monday 12 March

The February meeting of HCCA will be held Monday, March 12, 2007 at 7:30 p.m. The meeting, open to the public, will be held at The Hawthorn Center at 6175 Sunny Spring, the community center for Hickory Ridge, in Columbia. Directions are provided below.

Howard County Affordable Housing Crisis

The subject of the meeting will be affordable housing in Howard County. A recent county task force indicated a need for as many as 20,000 housing units for Howard County low and mid-income workers with income under $50,000. 70% of the County’s workers do not earn enough to rent or buy in Howard County using standard affordability formulas. Areas designated for residential use are fast being developed. The prices of real estate and rent have seriously escalated for existing housing and planned future housing generally is even more expensive. The task force report is available on the county website. Click here.

We are pleased that Stacy Spann, the newly installed Howard County Housing Director, will address the meeting.

Mr. Spann, until recently an assistant commissioner in Baltimore City's Department of Housing & Community Development, in fact lived in affordable housing in Howard County during his high school years. He has since worked as a social investment officer for the F. B. Heron Foundation in New York, the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City in Boston and the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone Development Corp. He moved back to Maryland in 2003 and has resided in Howard County with his family since last year.

Mr. Spann has been charged with improving the current situation on housing in the county. We look forward to hearing his assessment of the situation and his initial plans as he works on this challenging assignment.

Please bring family members and friends to exchange views on this important subject.