By JOAN JACOBSON

 For any Baltimore citizen interested in knowing how the very poor are truly being treated by the city, come to the People’s Public Forum on Baltimore’s Public Housing tomorrow (May 19) at 6 p.m. at the Greater Baltimore Urban League, 512 Orchard Street (near the corner of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Druid Hill Avenue).

 While the mayor touts a plan to eliminate homelessness in the next decade, the city’s housing practices toward the poor will only put more citizens on the streets. The forum was prompted by the Housing Authority of Baltimore City’s  practice of demolishing hundreds of public housing units with no plans for replacing them.

      For background, read the testimony of Citizens Planning and Housing Association, that the organization gave at a May 4 public housing hearing.: http://www.cphabaltimore.org/pdf/CPHA%202010%20comments%20FINAL.pdf .

Or, you can simply drive down a stretch of Central Avenue in East Baltimore (from Monument to Orleans).

There, you will see an empty space where Somerset Courts Public Housing project used to be.

For more in-depth reading, see the 2007 report I wrote for  the Abell Foundation:   “The dismantling of Baltimore’s public housing: Housing Authority cutting 2,400 homes for the poor from its depleted inventory — A 15-year trend shows a decrease of 42 percent in occupied units.”

Tomorrow’s forum is sponsored by CPHA, ACORN, the ACLU of Maryland, the Maryland Disability Law Center, the Homeless Person’s Representation Project and the University of Maryland Law School’s Community Development Clinic.