Future of Wicomico affordable housing

SALISBURY, md — Wicomico County officials came together today to celebrate the grand opening of a new affordable housing property in Salisbury.

While the number of people on the wait list for these kinds of places is still in the hundreds, officials say it’s an issue they’re working to address.

The Square at Merritt Mill is one of the latest properties to offer affordable housing in Wicomico county and while this residential community offers 50 spaces officials say they are aware of the growing need

“We have a number of tax credit properties built over the years — but we still have long waiting lists for people looking to get affordable housing help,” says Don Bibb, Executive Director for the Wicomico County Housing Authority.

Officials say the number of affordable housing units in the area are simply not enough.

That’s why they’ve started a new program that will help more people, sooner; it’s called the Residential Assistance Demonstration

“It allows residents who had formally lived in subsidized housing to move into new market rate appearance units and they pay no more in rent than what they’re paying as a public housing resident,” says Bibb.

We’re told that under the program, residents who qualify are given a voucher to make up the difference in price.

That’s made possible because of grants from the state.

“Thankfully the Department of Housing and Community Development has been extremely active under Governor Hogan’s leadership in providing funding — its really difficult to finance and build affordable housing so you need those resources,” says Patrick Stewart, Senior Developer for Pennrose.

Properties like Merritt Mill are just the latest example of these affordable housing communities being built and officials say they plan to build even more of them in the future so they can continue to get people into homes.

“We’re looking to divest all of our federal property down to voucher based communities and if that means tearing down an rebuilding and improving the quality of the neighborhoods thats what we’re going to do,” continued Bibb.

Officials say these projects are constantly being worked on but officials say these are large scale investments so they could take some time.