It seems hardly a week goes by without some high-profile ribbon-cutting with local elected officials trumpeting the latest affordable housing project. One day it’s Gov. Wes Moore showing Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf the wonders of the Reservoir Square redevelopment project in West Baltimore and on another, it’s Baltimore’s housing commissioner, Senate President Bill Ferguson and Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman touring a new low-cost home in Curtis Bay. Speeches are made, photographs are taken and there is much talk about how it’s the dawn of a new day.

But is it? The latest review of new apartment construction in Baltimore shows it’s not affordable housing but the higher-end variety that’s dominating the market. Since 2020, nearly 80% of new apartments in the city are considered “luxury” meaning they include such amenities as indoor pools, gyms and movie lounges. They come with high rents, too, with a two-bedroom unit renting for well north of $2,000 monthly. The voter-approved redevelopment of Harborplace is expected to continue the trend soon enough.

None of that is to disparage the new development in places like Brewers Hill in Canton. The city can certainly use all types of housing construction but the reality underscores the continuing need to provide better housing opportunities to families earning $60,000 or less annually. And it’s a statewide issue. A survey released just two months ago found over 48% of Maryland renters are paying above 30% of their income to housing costs.

That’s just not a sustainable pattern.

One of the barriers is, of course, the stigmas associated with low-income housing projects. Yet one of the best remedies for this is to promote more mixed-use development where lower-cost and higher-end rental units are part of the same landscape, preferably one served by public transit. Thus, healthy communities are like small towns where people from all walks of life can live side by side and not redlined apart with one area for the affluent and another for those who are not (with all the racial disparities associated with that problematic trend).

Creating more affordable housing is no easy task but if government can muster financial support for high-end commercial development like Harbor Point, it can encourage more places like Sojourner Place at Park, the $26 million mixed-use development featuring affordable housing recently approved near CFG Bank Arena. Ground is expected to be broken sometime next year. Expect a lot of politicians to show up for that event. Hopefully, they’ll do more than pose for photographs, they’ll commit to funding a lot more like it.