Rev. Annie Chambers Update

Baltimore Housing Authority Once Again tries to Stop our Free Food Giveaway

Every Wednesday at 247 N. Dallas Ct. in Baltimore, Rev. Annie Chambers and her team do a free food and household items giveaway. This giveaway program began over 3 years ago, and despite the community in her public housing project needing the food and supplies that she gives to them for free, the Baltimore Public Housing Authority has repeatedly tried to stop her.

Now they’re engaging in a new tactic to shut down the food giveaway. They're trying to evict Rev. Annie. They're claiming that all the stuff she gives away every week is cluttering up her house. And they’re saying that due to her age it's a safety hazard for her and that if she doesn’t move it or get rid of it they may start the eviction process.

So now by making this about her age and about her health and safety they are once again trying to shut down the food giveaway program.

If that wasn’t bad enough, they're also trying to evict many other public housing tenants in her development. Including tenants that help her with the giveaway program. Baltimore Housing is claiming these tenants don't pay enough rent. However, these tenants are all unemployed. Public housing rules state that if you're unemployed and making no income you don't need to pay rent in public housing. So Rev. Annie is advising tenants to go to court and to make that clear to the judge that these are illegal evictions. So far this has worked! Tenants are making this case in court and stopping their evictions!

But now the Baltimore Housing Authority is pressuring them to sign statements saying that they actually do have income because their families are helping them out financially. One tenant was questioned about how they could afford toilet paper if they were unemployed. They were then pressured to sign a letter stating that their family was helping them by purchasing things like toilet paper, so therefore they did have some sort of income.

Finally, the public housing authority in Baltimore, like public housing authorities everywhere, continues to sell off its own buildings. Rev. Annie’s building, for example, is in the process of being sold to Johns Hopkins. This policy of selling off massive government-owned housing projects to anyone who will buy them started under the Obama HUD administration at the Federal level, then continued under Trump and now continues still under Biden. Many well-connected companies and non-profits are getting these properties for pennies on the dollar via a very opaque process. And once sold the new owners get to decide if they want to let the tenants stay, raise the rent, or kick everyone out and convert the buildings to something else.

For more information about the weekly food giveaway and how to contribute please head to anniechambers.org and help us continue to fight back!