Sitting down for a radio interview to discuss a sweeping plan to privatize nearly half of Baltimore’s public housing, Housing Commissioner Paul T. Graziano said today he was publicly discussing it earlier than he had planned because a Baltimore Brew article “had a lot of inaccurate information.”

This would be significant, if true. He was referring to the February 27 article that broke the story other media followed, triggered the City Council to schedule a hearing on Wednesday and inspired WEAA’s Marc Steiner to put its author, Melody Simmons, on the air last week.

So what, show host Marc Steiner asked him, was the problem with the piece?

“The notion that was conveyed that all of our residents in public housing buildings would be given a voucher and told to move,” Graziano said. “I don’t want one of our residents to be anxious for one moment about the notion that they will lose their homes.”

But Steiner pressed him, noting that residents “will be eligible for vouchers in two years,” which is precisely what Simmons’ article in The Brew said, and something Graziano has since explained to other media and repeated on today’s show.

Alleged “Mis-Impressions”

“There was nothing in the Brew article that I read – and I read it many times, that’s why I had them on the air – that was not factual,” Steiner said. “Everything in there was factual.”

At this point, Graziano said there were “mis-impressions that were given.”

“Is it a fact that somebody could be given a voucher after two years? Yes. But to imply that everybody was going to be given a voucher and the interviews that were made. I’m not here to critique Ms. Simmons and her reporting, I am here to focus, because in fact the more I talk about that the more confused people will get,” Graziano said, trailing off.

Steiner pressed further still: “There were no lies in the article.”

“There was confusion in the article,” Graziano came back. “And there were the juxtapositionings of certain points and quotes that would lead people to believe they’d have to move somewhere else, that they’d be on their own.”

Steiner responded, “But that’s not what The Brew article said. I just want to be clear. Everything in there was factual.” Graziano did not contradict him, and the conversation moved on.

So, What About These Vouchers?

Simmons’ full article is here, but here are the relevant highlights. High up in the story, we talked about vouchers:

Under this latest plan for the city’s remaining high-rises, residents who live in the buildings being converted will be eligible to receive Section 8 housing vouchers two years after the developments are privatized. That will enable them to move out of the high-rises and into new subsidized housing units in Baltimore, or anywhere in the U.S.

Further down, characterizing national discussion of the pros and cons of the program, we said this:

Supporters describe the program as a way to keep housing for the poor from falling into disrepair or being demolished.

Critics fault it for exposing public housing to the risks associated with the private market, such as foreclosure, bankruptcy and default, and for destabilizing low-income communities.

“In addition to opening funding and management opportunities to private sources, the RAD program emphasizes mobility, by giving vouchers to residents instead of doing more to keep them in stabilized housing,” wrote New-York-based housing activists Liz Ryan Murray and Agnes Rivera, in a Politico op-ed.

“This will likely result in fewer public housing units actually being available to house our lowest-income people.”

Graziano Makes the Same Point

We even included some positive quotes from a tenant who clearly understood that vouchers will be offered – not imposed – and added that she liked the idea of being eligible for them.

“But White said, after she and other tenants met with housing officials about the RAD conversion, they are optimistic.

‘To most of the residents here, one of the main things causing people to stay is the [Section 8] vouchers. They are worth their weight in gold,’ she said.
‘You can get out of the high rises and go rent in the private sector.’”

White’s observations were not, in fact, that different from points made by Graziano himself during the Steiner show:

“If somebody wants to move, this is actually an added benefit because the current residents of public housing cannot get a voucher in any number of years to move,” Graziano said.

“They don’t have that right. This program gives you the statutory right after two years to ask us for a voucher and if we have one available we have to give you one.”