On February 20, 2024, Associate Policy Director Dominic Butchko submitted written testimony to the House Environment and Transportation Committee in support of HB 535- Maryland Task Force on Educator Housing with amendments. This bill establishes a task force to examine the lack of educator housing in the State.
For the 2024 Maryland General Assembly Session, MACo has made it a priority – one of the Association’s four legislative initiatives – to Advance Comprehensive Housing Solutions. Much like climate change and sea level rise, the challenges surrounding affordable housing are vast and call for a large, multipronged effort. While in other policy areas, it may be easy to deduce a simple cause-andeffect relationship, housing is a complex web of multifaceted factors. Addressing challenges like workforce, financing, interest rates, broad economic trends, supply chain, and large out-of-state corporate interests – among many other obstacles – requires an all-hands-on-deck effort from policy makers at all levels.
While housing challenges are widespread, their underlying causes likely vary across different areas and markets. A range of different county perspectives would add to the weight and salience of this group’s recommendations. Counties respectfully request that MACo be granted three representatives on the taskforce, selected to reflect different county compositions: rural, suburban, and urban.
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