Baltimore’s new homeless services chief focused on prevention

Dawn Orner, 52, stopped by City Hall in Baltimore on Wednesday and asked to use the restroom. She wasn’t allowed to use the facilities, she said, but was elated someone from the mayor’s office came down and listened to her story.

She’s been homeless off and on since she was 18 years old, including the last three years after being evicted from an apartment she secured with a voucher. She’s had legal issues, is now staying in a shelter in North Baltimore, and described herself as determined to get back what she’s lost.

“A lot of people are going the extra mile trying to get their life back,” Orner said.

Jerrianne Anthony, the city’s new director of Homeless Services, is charged with helping residents like Orner and thousands of others in Baltimore struggling with homelessness. She was previously the deputy administrator for homeless families in Washington.

Anthony, before fielding questions from reporters during her introductory news conference Wednesday, touted new initiatives in Baltimore, such as a rental assistance pilot program that will try to prevent evictions.

“The mayor’s vision is to make homelessness brief and nonrecurring. So part of that, making it brief and nonrecurring, is really providing preventative services for families and individuals before they come into our system,” Anthony said.

The pilot program will launch with a budget of $300,000. But Anthony hopes to find additional private funding. Stopping residents from being evicted and becoming homeless, she said, is cost efficient compared to handling the issue after resident lose their homes.

“As people enter the homeless system it costs the city much more to house them in temporary shelter then it would have if we were able to just stop their eviction,” Anthony said.

The rental assistance program will provide financial services, counseling on issues like repairing credit and set up payment programs with the Housing Authority of Baltimore City for residents behind on subsidized housing rent.

The program will also connect residents with legal services, Anthony said, in cases of illegal eviction. The court system, however, is not currently a partner in the initiative.

“Our vision is for a more robust prevention program, but this is just the beginning,” she said.

Homeless Services also launched a public housing partnership providing 14 units to residents ready to leave city shelters. The two- and three-bedroom apartments were provided by the housing authority after prior occupants moved out.

Homeless residents will move into those public housing units next month. Anthony and Mayor Catherine Pugh declined to say Wednesday where the units will be located but said they are not in properties slated for demolition.

Pugh said it’s possible funds going to the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and the Neighborhood Impact Investment Fund will be used to fund initiatives to battle homelessness.

Earlier this year, the mayor announced the creation of a $55 million neighborhood investment fund. Seed money from the fund comes from an arrangement with the Maryland Economic Development Corp. involving that organization issuing general obligation bonds. In turn, the city will lease city-owned garages through the organization.

The Baltimore City Council on Monday voted in favor of a bill subsidizing the Affordable Housing Trust Fund. City voters approved creating the fund in 2016 without a dedicated revenue source.

The funding bill, which the council must vote on one more time, raises Baltimore’s transfer and recordation taxes on the sale of properties of $1 million or more. That’s expected to provide the fund $13 million annually. Pugh, as part of a deal with activists, has agreed to provide $7 million in additional city money for the fund by 2023.

Including units for residents leaving homelessness in new affordable housing developments, Pugh said, is part of a broader strategy addressing housing insecurity.

“That to me is part of the foot print of Baltimore ultimately being successful in how we reduce homelessness, or continue to reduce homelessness in the city,” Pugh said.

In the meantime, residents like Orner are trying to hold on to their dreams of having a place to call home. At times, Orner said she dreams bigger; she fantasizes about taking a cruise.

“To get the inner feeling back again. That I’m the person I was,” she said.

Orner, who has long brown and grey hair, was dressed Wednesday in a bright orange windbreaker with a black sweatshirt and tennis shoes with bright pink laces. She said she tries not to feel sorry for herself.

There’s people on the street with college degrees, she said. She mentions a single mother who works at a nearby 7-Eleven barely getting by. Everyone needs help, she said, and some on the street have it worse than her.

She listed a litany of her medical issues. Most of her bottom teeth are missing and one of the few remaining needs to be pulled. She’s also had conflicts with residents at the shelter and worries about being kicked out.

But, mainly she’s concerned about being invisible.

“Tell the world about us. Don’t forget us. That’s all I ask,” she said.