Ehrlich on Washington column, December 3, 1995

NEWS FROM Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. Second Congressional District of Maryland 1407 York Road, Suite 304 Lutherville, Maryland 21093 3 1 5 Cannon House Office Building Washington, D.C. 20515 REPORT FROM WASHINGTON Week of December 3, 1 995 By Congressman Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr. HOUSING SETTLEMENT UPDATE No matter where I travel in the Second Congressional District, I receive more comments about the proposed Baltimore City/ACLU housing plan than any other issue. The vast majority of constituents I have spoken with have expressed vehement opposition to this ill-conceived plan. Fighting it has become my top priority in Congress. The plan in question is a proposed partial settlement to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union against city and federal governments regarding public housing practices. According to the terms of the settlement, 1,342 poor families living in Baltimore’s public housing projects will receive federal housing vouchers with which to rent private apartments and houses. However, it expressly forbids them from doing so in poor or minority neighborhoods. The Baltimore City/ACLU settlement is bad public policy-plain and simple. It places constitutionally-suspect limits on where voucher recipients may live. It elevates racial concerns over more relevant criteria-such as demonstrable economic needs-as a determining factor in our nation’s public housing policy. It is a wrongheaded attempt to resurrect the failed, federally- controlled, social engineering policies created in the 1960s for the 1990s. A few weeks ago I sought to introduce language into an appropriations bill which would have blocked the federal government from implementing the settlement by defunding the race-