Danielle Hill has a secret, one she shares with dozens of other residents of Baltimore public housing. It goes like this: They don’t live in the city.
Instead, they live in Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Harford and Howard counties, in houses purchased by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City. Thousands more have moved to the counties with special rent subsidies in a companion program.
Hill’s family is among nearly 10,000 black women and children who have moved into overwhelmingly white, prosperous suburbs through a court-ordered relocation program designed to combat the intense inner-city segregation and poverty forged by decades of discrimination.
That relocation program–one of the nation’s largest–has been discreetly rolled out to avoid the political and community opposition that routinely arises to defeat proposals for building subsidized housing in Baltimore’s suburbs. Hill’s Cockeysville townhouse, for example, was purchased by the city through a nonprofit organization based in the suburbs, with little notice to elected Baltimore County officials or the public.
“We did it very much under the radar,” Amy Wilkinson, fair housing director for the Housing Authority of Baltimore City, said of the home purchases. “We met very early on with the county executives. They understood we had to do it. Their request was to make sure [the homes] are really scattered and make sure we do it quietly.” ...
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