Steep increases in rents put squeeze on budgets of Baltimore residents

The radius of Alonzo Washington’s apartment search keeps growing, but the results it turns up are always the same: too expensive. After a new apartment management company bought his complex in North Baltimore last year, he and other residents received notices that they had to vacate their units so the company could renovate the complex, he said. Those notices thrust Washington and his neighbors into the heart of an acute shortage of affordable housing, with rents spiking beyond the reach of many.