Tag Archives: East Baltimore Development Inc.

Who belongs in Baltimore? Community rebuilding must happen for everyone

I attended a conference several weeks ago at the Hyatt Regency on Light Street in Baltimore. So I took the free Circulator bus from Middle East Baltimore and walked along the water to the Inner Harbor. This was pleasant. But along with the pleasure came the awareness of the challenges facing our city. For example, the number of police officers at the ready in the Inner Harbor, ready to remove anyone who did not “look” like they belonged, was questionable. At one point when a person who “looked” like they may be homeless sat down at one of the empty tables in the Inner Harbor, there were 3 police officers who came by and harassed him: “what was he eating? where did he get it? The man said “I’m going, I’m going”. After this harassment they left and a few minutes later the gentleman got up and left. I suppose he would finish eating somewhere he belonged?

Exactly where is that? Is it somewhere where those who “look” like they belong can’t see him, won’t be distressed by his appearance? The saying “out of sight, out of mind” is deep and true. If we don’t see the despair and the obvious separation of how we exist in society, we don’t have to think about it and question why it is some have access while others don’t. Is Baltimore city able to be a home to all of us? Those with means and those without? Those who look like they belong? Those who don’t? What does “belonging look like these days? Obviously the Inner Harbor is being secured for those who “belong”.

The challenge of homelessness and poverty, racism and its continuing legacy, and its root causes continue in Baltimore. The different incidents on my walks through the Harbor and nearby areas confirmed this. Other incidents occurred at the bus stops. One man was sleeping at one stop. Another was sitting with his bag. I wondered how he could exist with only that one bag. I asked about his family: he had 4 children, the first two were twins and now 24 years old. He saw them regularly but not the other two. I offered him an orange then the bus came; that was across from the Reginald Lewis museum. At a stop near University of Maryland, someone asked me for change. I told him about the clutch for my 17 year-old car in the shop and how much that was going to put me back. He then said, “how are you doing?”. We had a conversation about challenges in life and how we take care of them, and ourselves. I offered him a peach and he accepted and left. At one of the 4 stops around Johns Hopkins East Baltimore campus, someone asked me if it was free to ride the Circulator. I responded yes but thought we should have to pay; “why should we ride free when folks taking the MTA have to pay?” We shared that maybe those with an MTA ticket could ride the Circulator for free, the rest pay. This conversation begs the question: who exactly is the Circulator bus for? As we rebuild Baltimore are we all clear as to who we want in the city?

One morning, about 730am, as I was walking across the skywalk from the Inner Harbor pavilions to the Hyatt Regency, I came across a woman sleeping on the steps. sleepShe had 2 paris of socks laid out on the cement to dry. Did she wash them in the fountain water near the steps? She had a sign next to her that said something like, “I lived with my father, then he died, then I lost the house and now am homeless”. Not 20 steps away, I entered the Hyatt Regency, its posh, air conditioned-chilled, and politeness stung me and I thought of the woman on the steps. There seemed so much space in this hotel, taken up with aesthetically-placed chairs to assure its occupants a spacious and easeful feeling. I wondered why couldn’t she access these spaces for the night, to rest. I recognized how artificial the built environment was for some; how much it seeks to create incubators, bubbles of separation and insulation from each other. Eventually we justify it as safety, not questioning the origins of separate and unequal that paved the road to today’s poverty. We don’t want those with access to have to think about those without. How are we rebuilding Baltimore to continue this legacy of separation?

As I walked through Harbor East, just in case the path favoring Baltimore’s inequity and separation did not penetrate enough, a reminder was provided by the recent signage in Harbor East: “Baltimore’s Luxury District: right this way”. luxuryThe cranes to the right and left of this sign, a timeless indicator of economic development and job opportunity, confirm that the city is growing. But for whom? The Harbor Point development on the left will usher in a high-rate cost of living while the expansion of the Four Seasons on the right will usher in luxury condominiums for those with means. In this era of privatization of public services, government gifting of tax incentives to the rich to develop, global permeation of local markets, we still have no plan for how we will assure that everyone who wants to stay in Baltimore benefits. Weak policies for affordable housing with no follow-up for implementation currently exists in Baltimore. No plans for equitable education and social services for our existing residents and no living wage policy exists. The trickle-down economics we believe in hasn’t quite trickled down into majority Black Baltimore where 37% of young Black men are unemployed, compared to 10% young White men. Still our politicians and public officials maintain that the generous benefits of our tax dollars to the wealthy to develop and live in Baltimore will trickle down to the masses. To fulfill this plan of trickle-down economics, we have a Circulator bus running in circles in areas that house the professional and “creative classes”, we have Zip Cars and bike lanes serving the same class. The Mayor’s plan for 10,000 new families in 10 years focuses on rebuilding of houses for $150,000. Low income people cannot afford this. Who will “belong” to Baltimore in the next 10-20 years? The City Paper’s annual “best of” series remind us of what our city leaders consider equitable and sustainable development: best example of gentrification seen in Middle East Baltimore shepherded by EBDI (East Baltimore Development Inc.), Johns Hopkins University and Hospital, Forest City, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and our local and state government. In this development of an 88-acre area just north of the Johns Hopkins Medical campus, our city and state leaders and its well-resourced profit and non-profit leaders are quite comfortable determining who belongs as they assured displacement of more than 750 majority African American and low-income families to make room for a different race and class of people. They know who belongs in our city!

Courtesy of BRACE

Courtesy of BRACE

One morning one rider on the bus reminded me of Baltimore’s resilience: “we can’t wait for them to give us jobs, we have to make our own jobs”. He went on to describe how his cousin made money by dressing up as Santa Claus, buying a camera, and making money during the Christmas season. He had a couple other local entrepreneurial stories like this. Baltimore’s residents need jobs, and support structures which help them to become business owners and not forever at the whim of capitalist anchors such as hospitals, universities, and non-profits. Jobs must provide a living wage so people can afford to live in the places being redeveloped. Only with living wage-jobs will low and middle-income people be able to stay in Baltimore and enjoy the fruits of this economic development occurring around the city. Instead of steering Baltimore city residents into the county-with housing vouchers not being accepted in the city- the city’s economic and community development plans must plan for affordable housing, self-employment, and living-wage employment. Anything else will continue to create the conditions of one-check-away from homelessness increasing around our city. As we prepare to vote for city officials, let’s ask each of them, whether new or old to the position, what they will do about affordable housing and integrative economies that assure local entrepreneurship and living wage-jobs. If our elected officials are not ready or willing to address our housing and employment, education, recreation, transportation, and health challenges in Baltimore, so everyone benefits, vote them out. It’s really simple, we have to vote with our feet and hearts, and not with our mouths.

While we act individually on the political front, we must continue to build our collective movement across multiple issues on a path toward equity for all. In support and elaboration of the Black Lives Matter movement, the southern movement, the Standing Up for Racial Justice movement, and all the university-based movements happening nationwide, we can build a movement to take back our cities so all can participate. Baltimore belongs to everyone who wants to be here.

“We cannot dismantle the Master’s house with the Master’s tools”

This quote of Audre Lorde’s is timeless, has been interpreted and re-interpreted countless times, and still pertains to the way we rebuild communities today. It may be a good time to revisit this penetrating truth, in light of the heightened awareness of the need to “dismantle the Master’s house”.

The Master’s tools, The Master’s house

We have been using the Master’s tools to build and rebuild communities of the United States and beyond, in the image of the Master’s needs. This fundamental truth and its legacy continues to unfold in ways most of us do not fully comprehend. The tools of a belief system of race and class oppression, gender and sexual oppression, and all the other power-generated means of separation, control, exploitation, and oppression have been used to build and rebuild communities over the centuries. Focusing in on racism, white supremacy and classism, these tools imprinted and evolved the genetics of this nation. These tools justified wiping out the Native American population, slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, urban renewal, mass incarceration, and segregation as “normal” ways to build and rebuild communities of Black, Brown, and low-income peoples. Indeed even the current president of the United States acknowledged: “It is incontrovertible that race relations have improved significantly during my lifetime and yours, and that opportunities have opened up, and that attitudes have changed. That is a fact. What is also true is that the legacy of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination, in almost every institution of our lives, that casts a long shadow. And that’s still part of our DNA that’s passed on. We’re not cured of it. Racism, we are not cured of it”. The nation’s slow and long-awaited acknowledgement of this truth is prodded by the recent heightened awareness of killing of Black lives: killing of 9 Black lives in Charleston, SC by a white teenager, police killing of Black lives in South Carolina, Maryland, Missouri,New York, Ohio, Chicago…the list goes on. The uprisings against such acts of violence, highlighted the intricate ways community disinvestment and abandonment, community fragmentation, police violence, and wealth and health inequities, interact as causes and effects and continue to create conditions prone to violence of all forms. Listening to residents in East and West Baltimore before and after the uprising confirmed the way the Master’s tools, driving the machine of structural racism, continue to perpetuate these conditions:

“When I worked on Monument a police was stopping a woman walking down the sidewalk with her dog. Back then, you couldn’t walk you dog on the side walk. He was yelling at her, calling her black B. Sheila Dixon was walking by, was on the City Council at that time. She said to the officer something about not talking to the woman like that; the officer said she should shut up and keep walking. Next thing you know, he called Sheila Dixon a black B and started calling her name, grabbed her, cuffed her, and had her sitting on the side walk. [Sheila Dixon went on to be Mayor of Baltimore]. Another time, I was on Jefferson street in the afternoon. This police got out the car and told everyone standing on the sidewalk, sitting on their stoops, to get into their houses because this was his street and nobody was allowed outside. I don’t know what to think about that…felt like this could be a german gestapo, know what I mean?”

“Yes [been harassed by police]. We’re just standing in front of the Chinese carry out…just waiting for our food…and the police come and tell us to move along. Move along?…we’re waiting for our food…thought the side walk was public property…we can’t stand on the corner in our own community? they want to pat us down…ask us if we have guns…we call it “SWB”…you know what that means? means “standing while black”…if you black you can’t stand on the corner…did you know that? Not the first time I been harassed or seen other people. Too many times to count… yes it breaks up our community…you know why? because we can’t just stand around and talk…they think we’re selling…we can’t even talk to each other…more than two of us and they scared…you know where this comes from? from slavery…when they saw two or more of us talking they thought we were trying to do something…since then they been scared…”

“Yes, of course [been harassed]. First time was 16. Since then I get harassed/ stopped at least once every year. This is all a system problem. What happen with Freddie Gray is not a one-time occurrence. Last time got harassed, was driving and pulled over, profiled. Some guys walked past and distracted the police. They just left me there, told me to go. Didn’t pull me over for anything. They have to meet that quota.

“police all about themselves. take money for themselves when they raid drug houses, take the drugs too. Then people get killed because drugs missing, money missing”

Our belief systems embed and nourish systems of structural racism and white supremacy, built institutions that maintain racial oppression in place and continues to perpetuate violence against our communities of color, more physical and brutally severe in our low income communities. These are the “houses of the Master” eerily reminiscent of the past times, times we like to think are gone. When we compare the neighborhoods that were redlined in Baltimore (Black neighborhoods characterized as not worthy of investment by banks, supported by the Federal Housing Administration) from the 1930’s and the neighborhood maps of current day Baltimore we see a consistent pattern of disinvestment, almost 100 years later. Many of these neighborhoods disinvested in the 1930‘s remain the neighborhoods with the highest amount of poverty, low educational attainment, highest rates of parole, lowest rates of employment, lowest life expectancy, high rates of infant death, highest amount of abandoned and vacant houses, lowest rates of homeownership (maps courtesy of Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance).

baltimore redlining map
Figure 1.PopAA

Figure2.PovertyUnemploy

Figure3.HSVacant

Figure4.Ownviolat

Figure5.InfMLifEx

Figure6.GunhomPapro

Many of the neighborhoods disinvested in the 1930‘s remain the “houses’ created by the Master’s tools. Those currently with moderate or majority White populations are also the result of the separation and resultant community investment using the tools of the Master: creating communities of inequity, in all aspects of life. Why? because we continue to use the Master’s tools to build and rebuild communities: communities of separation by race and class. Listening to the voices of residents:

“Get the people some jobs…people can’t find jobs…and jobs that pay good money.”

“gentrification cause police brutality…the brothers don’t have anywhere to go now, they hang out on the street corner and get harassed and arrested for that”

“Ain’t none [referring to changes in the neighborhood]. govt gonna do what they want to do not mater what. if they did, they would be done help people. Look at Johns Hopkins, buy up houses and kick them people all out. “

“Less police, more schools, better housing. we need jobs. how can you support your family without a job. No job, you get into trouble. Been clean for a long time now…the job keeps me clean. Got something to do everyday. Things for the kids to do. They get in trouble because they got nothing to do after school”

“t’s not the money, it’s who the money is going to. If the money goes to the same three benefactors, who do the same thing every year, nothing is gonna change. I call it a “pipeline”. They the ones in the pipeline for all the funds for all these things [policing, education, housing, workforce training, recreation, street repair] get allocated to the same ones. We have to allocate our funding more broadly. We need more community oversight. More than that, we need community based organizations in the community doing the work, not outside the community. The money need to come to the community and stay in the community.”

“They giving the police so much money but they not doing their job.Need money to clean up the streets. I love Baltimore, don’t want to go anywhere else. start with this house, they need to fix it. I rent, he’s a slumlord. but I have to try and fix it myself.”

“Took away the rec centers, day care so people ended up having to work two jobs for $8/hr. mothers have to work, so they become prostitutes, then they lock them up. get some jobs so we can live. then we won’t get locked up for living. Now want to stop foodstamps; keep the foodstamps going. are you being fair to people, or just trying to get over?…How come you won’t hire an ex-convict? why can’t give them a break? Ex-convicts have a lot of skills, some of them really smart. Can’t find a job…How bout those ones they falsely accuse, then 20 years later they say “oh sorry” you’re not guilty, and want to give them money. They lost 20 years, can’t make up for lost time, money can’t heal yourself.”

“Need jobs here…That Hopkins project, 2 people working over there on that new project. They talk a lot about giving people a chance, helping people in the hood. but what I see is they don’t hire people from here. EBDI doesn’t hire the local people. But they talk big…tell you you got a record…don’t help you cause you got a record? thought they suppose to help you even if you have a record, don’t call you back”

“Need housing, places for the kids to play…so they don’t keep doing the same things. see those kids over there? they bored on a Saturday afternoon.
when I was a kid we use to play over there, now there’s Johns Hopkins…now the kids they make up their own games, like “steal the smart phone game”…So they get creative, make up games like that, and other ones”

“Nothing changed in this community all the years I been here. Only thing change is the rent, it keeps going up and the management don’t tell you why just that the rent will go up in a month. If you can make it you stay, not you out. Need affordable housing and better landlords. People need to make sure landlords do right by us. Nobody watching them. but they watching us. Who gonna help us?
Need safe places for the kids to play so they don’t go join them gangs and run from school to house because parents don’t want them on the street corner. hard for kids these days. Lucky with mine, she just went to college, so proud of her.

Why change our tools, change our houses?

So what tools are we to use, to dismantle this “house” of oppression and separation, and build communities of equity? How do we as individuals and societies, use the tools at our disposal to rebuild communities in line with peace and justice? Perhaps what Ms. Lorde was leading us toward, was the need for us to re-interpret the use of the tools used by the Master to build communities of fear and hate. Perhaps her guidance was to reconsider not only the use of different tools, but the transformation of ourselves so we could re-interpret the use of the tools at our disposal-previously used to build “houses’ of separation, fear, and anger. Take the knife for example, it can be used to peel a ripe and delicious mango, to offer joy and satiate the taste buds. Or it can be used to cause harm. And so it is with any tool at our disposal. The use of construction labor, justly compensated can benefit those rebuilding communities-developers, corporations/universities/hospitals, other private and non-profit interests- and those doing the actual building if they receive a living wage. Just compensation for any type of work, can benefit those with the means to pay for the work being done and those doing the work. Building homes which are affordable to those with low incomes or subsidized incomes along with homes for the middle and market rate earners benefits everyone, not just those with the means to live where they choose. Health care access and benefit for everyone, regardless of race and class, not limited access for some and excessive access for the rich and majority white population moves us toward equitable health. The tools of community building and existence is at our disposal; unfortunately, based on our belief systems of separation of race and class, we have been using them to benefit one race and class of people resulting in accumulation of good health and wealth aggregated into communities of majority White and professional classes. The children and grandchildren of these groups-the supposed “creative class”- continue to benefit today, while the children of Black and Brown peoples, working class and low-income continue to be disenfranchised, individually and as communities, physically and mentally displaced. Changing our belief systems will be necessary to change the ways we use the tools of community building at our disposal.

Individual transformation, of the ways we perceive those different from us, is necessary. Why? Because we don’t only separate based on differences, we compare and judge, demonize, exploit and oppress using notions of inferiority and superiority. These are the tools of the oppressor, the Master. The stories we hold in our mind, the perceptions and thoughts passed on from our ancestors and kin folk, neighbors and friends, places of worship and education, employment and recreation, these are the fundamental tools, the building blocks of words and actions which justify our use of the physical and mental tools of economic violence, social violence, political violence, and health violence against the other. And these are the tools that lead to justifying the continued neglect and abandonment of communities of color and low income. This justification to demonize results in actions that build communities abandoned not only of physical resources, but abandoned of love, compassion, patience, understanding. This fear of the “other”, often unspoken, spins stories in our mind of the inferiority of Black people. As the White teenager in Charleston admits, even when the Black congregants of the church were kind in words and actions toward him, he had to do what he had been mentally trained to do: remove those who he was fearful of, the other, the “demons”. Such a mind was cultivated to believe these tapes and fear Black people; such a mind justified actions of violence. And it is such a mind, aggregated en mass as White Supremacy which built this country and continues to enact implicit and explicit bias against Black and Brown people, continuing the gap between the majority of White and higher income communities and majority of of-color and lower income communities. Returning to the the insights on the streets of East and West Baltimore:

“The big people know this has been going on. All the time. They don’t care and they turn their backs on it. Turn their backs on this community. If they decide that it has to change, from the top, it will change. Finally someone at the top did the right thing [referring to the indictment of 6 Baltimore police officers involved in the killing of Freddie Gray]. See what happened. The police stop working. [referring to the non-responsiveness of police officers during the month of May after the indictment of the 6 Baltimore police officers] We need them. Just need them to stop harassing black people.”

“The media, don’t get me started…they orchestrate all this. they gonna get me on the news for a night, then something else important come up… but we still here. got to get City paper to see what’s really going on.”

“They took away a lot of stuff, left us here with nothing. Nothing but a little part everyday. so everybody get equal opportunity to leave…they say. But some of us can’t leave…now, we black people, don’t like to see any of us get ahead. If i buy a new car and park it there, someone gonna come along and scratch it up. Just cause they don’t have one. We don’t let each other get ahead because we jealous of them. If we see someone get ahead, we try to bring them down…been left too long”

The gentle steps of change

So what will it take for this shift in our minds, the ultimate tool of oppression, the ultimate tool that fuels the building and rebuilding of the Master’s house. The Master’s house is a house of separation, oppression, and exploitation, in all aspects of life. Therefore in any aspect of our daily life we have the ability and opportunity to change these tapes of the Master. In every step we place on the earth, whether we are walking from the bed to the toilet, the car to the store, the apartment to the restaurant, the bus stop to the barber shop, each step can be a transformative act when we are conscious and aware. And what does this awareness do? Simply being aware of the thoughts passing through our minds, is already a step toward transformation. We can begin to notice the thought that comes to mind when we see a person different from ourselves, or whom we perceive as being different from ourselves, based on some physical appearance. We note what goes through our mind. Maybe we start noting a pattern of thoughts that come to mind when we see a Black person, a White person, a person dressed in older clothing, a person dressed in clothing just off the rack, a woman, a man. Then we notice how these patterns shape the words we use with these perceived others, the actions we engage in with the other. Just this mere awareness, when connected to the understanding of love, of compassion will make us question ourselves: “how am I perpetuating division and discrimination when I have thoughts like this; is it in line with the love and equality, peace I speak about, of the patience I say I want to offer to everyone”. Noticing in ourselves first, how we participate in acts of separation and violence, is a big step toward changing the way we interact with others. When we become more aware of ourselves we become more aware of the interactions we engage in and how others act similarly or different. The individual gentle steps of transformation is a major path of change toward dismantling the Master’s house of exploitation, separation, violence, and injustice. A transformed self transforms all the interactions and spaces we engage in and with: after all houses, communities, societies are made up of individuals. A house of aware and non-violent individuals builds communities and societies of awareness and non-violence. Such collective communities are powerful forces for change, to recreate and rebuild communities of justice and peace, equity and sufficiency.

When we listen to residents of East and West Baltimore, we have an imperative to change:

“Hope things change, want better for this place. I’m a part of it. I just live here, want better cause I live here. Got people growing up, tell me you wanna raise the next generation in something like this? I wouldn’t want to be a child right now, too hard. that’s why I dont have not right now”

“People have to come together, coming together, changing each other.”

“Community is already fragmented-the mentality-The generations before us didn’t inform everyone how the system works, they didn’t tell the kids. Life is a game, change the whole game. lots of people don’t care anymore. know the cause but don’t care about the effect. they say don’t get involved.”

“I learn to stay by myself. If you talk to the ones on the corner drinking, even if you not drinking, they’ll harass you, arrest you, make you sit on the curve. That’s why I stay by myself, stay out of trouble, sit here and drink my beer. Safer that way.”

“Can’t fragment what’s already fragmented; already broken. can’t get any worst. 38 bodies died already in May-more bodies than the days in a month. The police took the month off. Police not making it any better, not worst. It’s a cop out to say they cause the community to fragment. [referring to the number of deaths occurring in Baltimore City in the month of May 201]”

“yes, they [referring to police violence] break up the community. anybody loose someone they love, of course they grieve. They harass people and don’t think they have families.”

“Don’t get involved, keep to self and keep block clean. Don’t socialize. Up and down this block I clean up. I play with my grandkids, raised all 5 of them. My grandaughter graduate from college tomorrow. So proud of her. I teach them to get a job and hold a job. As long as you clean and smelling good, you’re okay.
These my boys [referring to several young men 3 stoops down who come over to ask for a light]. They respect me, I tell them to get jobs”

“Yes, community fragmented b/c they don’t know which way they should go. don’t know which way to go, don’t know if they for us or against us. Fragment, when they should get involved…when police are wrong. don’t know if should get involved. don’t know if it will hurt them. should get involved… we come together as one people. if I say or do something it can be wrong. got everything so enclosed like…one guy thought I was snitching, cop at my door. my [family member] is an officer.”

“Feel like not wanted in the hood. feel like I don’t fit in that area.
Feel like they don’t want no criminals involved, make me feel like I can’t get no job either. Cause once you arrested, you can’t get a job. I got into the Jericho program for ex offenders just come home. They do some training, like cooking. Does it work? see where I’m sitting now? you get a certification in cooking but you got to find you your own job.”

“Get excluded cause have to be on guard. you know. don’t want to talk to the police and don’t want to talk to the gang either, then police think you doing something with them too. Keep to myself, just go and come, say hello, smile, that’s it.”

“The parents don’t teach the kids respect. They allow them to go buckwild.
Never believe in whipping, you can sit down and talk to your child. Don’t have to holler at them. I don’t care how bad they are, even autistic kids you can sit and talk to them. Kids act like this because they weren’t bring up right.
When I was brought up, if I didn’t go to church I couldn’t go outside. 8pm be on the step, 9pm inside the house. playing was fun, that’s it. But now parents they got so much on their mind. The kids running around and throwing stones at cars for fun, little kids..not nice. I just tell them God don’t like ugly.”

If ever there was a time in our society, for change, it is now. Unfortunately, our history has offered us many periods, when change was the only solution. And this is one of them. The tools of oppression must be dismantled, must be transformed; this tool of the mind must be transformed toward understanding, peace, non-violence, justice, and equity, in a breath, in a moment, in a movement. The process of change will recreate and rebuild our house in order and truth. Peace is the way.

Full report of resident voices on policing, community fragmentation and change, by Social Health Concepts and Practices, Inc. will be available soon.

Re-Building communities: separation or sustainability

Community rebuilding as a means to separation

windowplantUrban rebuilding can be a dualistic/separatist undertaking, benefitting the rich only or one which incorporates the community and benefits all-sustainability. A recent article out of Hagerstown Maryland offers Baltimore city and its cadre of urban rebuilders some great advice: include the community in planning for our community rebuilding or continue rebuilding that leads to divergent paths: those with and those without. In regard the lack of social services for the existing community in current rebuilding plans those working at Hagerstown area nonprofit agencies said: “…they were disappointed that a Philadelphia firm that helped the city come up with a downtown revitalization plan did not address the issues with which that the local organizations deal. Ostoich said Urban Partners, which recommended an eight-part revitalization plan for Hagerstown, has certainly observed situations in other cities that are similar to Hagerstown’s challenges…Ostoich said she would like to see a partnership formed between the nonprofit organizations, the City of Hagerstown and the city’s office of economic development to address issues like homelessness and substance abuse.” link1 Each non-profit providing services for homelessness, housing access and affordability, recovery, mental health and substance abuse treatment, post-incarceration issues, employment reported an increase in their clients and the need for revitalization plans to address these needs.

This is the same pattern of urban rebuilding occurring in Baltimore and beyond: revitalization projects which turn a blind eye to the existing social conditions, many of which are brought about by unemployment and under-employment. Plans do not address the need for recovery programs, or re-entry programs, or mental health programs, or job training, or interview skills, or stress reduction. These conditions are present in Baltimore and other cities which have seen the massive loss of jobs since the 1970’s industrial revolution (substituting machine for human power) and the downturn in the economy since neoliberalism-government joining with private investors to grow their wealth using public subsidies. The outcome of such policies and practices has been the increasing gap between the rich and the poor and the inevitable way vulnerable communities become ill when facing increased stress and little resources to address it. The story in Hagerstown offers a glimpse of what Baltimore has been experiencing for decades: an increase in homelessness, drug use and recovery, mental illness and recovery, unaffordable housing, crime and incarceration. Ostoich speaks about a dual path that revitalization is bringing to the city, one which includes the well-off and those not so well-off. Here in Baltimore we continue to experience the same. Door-knocking and listening in the periphery of the 88-acre Johns Hopkins/EBDI/Casey Foundation/Forest City Bioscience and gentrification project confirms the dual pathway of revitalization. Long time residents share about a fear of not being part of the development as housing prices increase and new neighbors move in. They fear being priced out with property tax increases and rental hikes. New residents are happy with the prices of housing compared to NY or DC and like being in an area marketed for “change” for them. Those with skills and education that allow them to work in corporations and jobs which subsidize housing cost (Live near your work, etc) are mostly happy in their new homes as they wait for more change to manifest around them (one question to ask is how is government subsidizing the employer to offer such housing assistance). Families of generational East Baltimore residents talk about returning from areas north and east but lament the high cost of housing “can’t pay that much but would be nice to come back now that it’s finally changing”. Perceptions of why some locals are home during the day, why some are hanging out on the corner at nights, and the safety of the area persist for the new residents: “I wouldn’t let my mom walk in Patterson Park at night”; while the majority of long time residents don’t mention issues of safety as a concern. Both long time and new residents alike talk about the lack of a place to grocery shop: the type of store will be another tale to tell whether it is affordable for low income residents or not. The new Early Learning Center at the Henderson-Hopkins school is also an issue on people’s mind, especially for those long time residents told they have to be on a waiting list because their income is too high to qualify for admission: “all those Hopkins people have high income and they’re there”. For new residents who are fighting the city about paving an alleyway, they don’t understand why this has to be a struggle: “this is infrastructure of the city, why wouldn’t they pay?” IMG-20121020-00685Indeed, why wouldn’t they pay for this while updating the infrastructure for big development projects in the amount of millions of dollars in tax subsidies is normal, with no effective claw-backs or evaluation as to how the public benefits- Johns Hopkins Medical Institution/EBDI/Casey Foundation/Forest City Developers 78 million, Harbor Point 100 million, Poppleton/La Cite 58 million.

But the marks of a dual path in the rebuilding of Baltimore city goes beyond East Baltimore and West Baltimore. The increased cost of parking across the city is another piece of this dualism as well as the extended times meters are in effect and having to pay to drive the Express Lanes on I-95 (in the White Marsh and 695 region). The Express lanes are accessible with payment only, and in the form of EZ Pass only. These are examples of the separation of those who can afford to participate in what the city has to offer, and those who cannot. If you don’t want to be late you can pay to get on the Express lanes and avoid the merging traffic but when a monthly income is stretched very thin, that extra $3.50 (round trip) can be a significant challenge: in paying your bills and in getting to work on time. Baltimore-20140714-01535This dualistic path of community rebuilding tells the same tale in DC’s 20001 zip code where one shopowner of 40 years posted a sign: “Due to ‘gentrification’ and mixed emotions Jak and Company Hairdressers will be closing”: the landlord would not renew the lease.Link2 Here the white population has grown from 6% in 2000 to 33% currently and the new residents require a different set of amenities. We see the same happening in Harbor East where new development continues while the owners of a local fried chicken and pizza take-out-Kennedy- was told their lease would not be renewed. Just across from the Perkins Homes on Eden and Bank and serving this community for over 15 years his product is not what the new race and class of people being enticed to this area are seeking to buy.Baltimore-20140714-01541

Changing the game for sustainability: community ownership and social movements

This “mixing” of the old and new is a challenge that will not go away today but can begin to be addressed if existing community is at the community rebuilding table. The needs of existing residents and businesses can be addressed in the planning, as well as the needs of the new residents usually represented by the developers whose aim is to attract a class of people able to afford moderate and market rate housing and amenities. Such separation of the old and the new is an age-old challenge of rebuilding and continues today because we continue to ignore the outcomes of previous unhealthy and unequal community building strategies and practices. This chronic disinvestment in low-income and African American and of-color communities has resulted in communities unable to compete in the current market-place for decent employment, over-burdened households with little access to resources, and health burdens that limit access to competitive opportunities. Community rebuilding involving the people as well as the place is crucial. This means assuring equity in not only housing but in employment and resources that will remediate and ready existing communities to benefit from new opportunities. It is not enough for developers like East Baltimore Development Inc. and Forest City to say we cannot hire locally because the people do not qualify (due to incarceration records, drug use, or lack of skill sets). This type of minimalist and separatist community rebuilding is unsustainable and what we have been doing for decades. Like Ostoich said, everyone must be at the table so that the needs of the existing community are incorporated into the plan and not displaced away from sight and sound of the new people. This is why the false type of advertising perpetuated by developers about their rebuilding being “game changers” is misleading and simply provides a narrative for the part of Baltimore with access to resources. In East Baltimore, developers should be ashamed about their contribution to this same ole game of segregation in line with Jim Crow and the removal of Native Americans to reservations. Our policies created our current social challenges and therefore current policies must remediate them. Now that would be a real game changer!

Of course, waiting for government to change, while important is not our only option for change. Organizing and building small and large social movements that challenge the current way we address our most vulnerable is important. Local organizing is key. Many new and old residents alike are unaware of their neighborhood organizations in East Baltimore which is a significant risk factor for not having strong neighborhood cohesion. It is this neighborhood cohesion that offers strength and power to resist government’s plans to rebuild communities without local input. Community fragmentation is an outcome of past and current segregation tactics of community rebuilding. However, it is also a cause of continued segregation and a big obstacle to community power. For example, when a 20-block area has neighborhood associations that don’t communicate with each other or when foundations such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation publicly announces it will only fund one of them (the one with whom it has close relations) collective community power is difficult. Difficult but not impossible. In fact, these same conditions existed in East Baltimore in 2001 and allowed Hopkins/EBDI/Casey/Forest City to come into East Baltimore and expect easy exploitation of land and people. Their expectations were not realized only when the number of people organized exceeded the handful which claimed representation -gate-keepers- of the entire community. The gate-keepers who were willing to stand aside and allow mass exploitation of people and place in the form of unhealthy demolition practices, minimal relocation benefit, minimal payment for existing property were simply outnumbered. The creation of a new organization-Save Middle East Action Committee- then allowed a new vision and practice of community leadership, sisterhood and brotherhood, and mutual respect. Strategies and practices for the people by the people resulted in a powerful force which presented the desires of the impacted people, not a handful with close relations to those with power. We are at a critical impass again almost 15 years later, in East Baltimore, greater Baltimore and beyond.

DSCF6084
Water bills are increasing across the city with little accounting as to why by the city government while private corporations are dictating to government what efficiency looks like, here and across the world. Link3 Private and non-profits are increasingly poised to take over the role of government programs in public education as the new head of Baltimore’s education is leading the way with the promotion of charter schools and privatization. Link4 Using public funds in charter schools skims the little resources away from public schools while private funders manage and dictate educational reform according to their political view. Social service programs are increasingly operated by private and non-profits companies even while race and class-based equity is lacking and little accountability and transparency exists due to their status. This re-distribution of the public wealth into private and the non-profit industrial complexes’ pockets should bare close scrutiny and transparency. We require social movements from below to balance the growing social movements from above and from those with unchallenged power: we need to change the game, truthfully and not leave it to being co-opted by non-profits and private corporations competing for public subsidies. The upcoming social movements gathering/ forum in May in Detroit is one to check into as it will bring together different movements addressing housing access/affordability and water privatization and water as a human right in the US. Link5 Equitable and sustainable community rebuilding requires everyone at the table: to bring about balance and accountability in planning, processes, and implementation, to redistribute power long favored by the few, to move us toward a peaceful co-existence that will heal our segregated communities, and to end old strategies and practices that lead to greater separation and dualism of those with and those without.

Participatory democracy: right-to-vote, right to participatory development, and the right of government to prevent foreclosure

Right to vote in Hong Kong

Assuring democracy in countries which claim democratic governments is already difficult! What about countries which make no qualms about non-democratic systems of government? The current struggle in Hong Kong for voting rights in Hong Kong’s upcoming election is just that. Residents of Hong Kong are demanding that they have representative vote of their region’s interest in the new chief executive-governing leader- and have been ignored by the powerful government bodies of China and Hong Kong. (1) In response students in Hong Kong have taken to the streets and occupied them, initially called Occupy Central. This has expanded to the general public now called ‘the Umbrella Revolution or Movement’. Their intention is to gain support for their demands for some form of participatory democracy. This past weeks’ demonstrations witnesses this struggle and has garnered solidarity across the globe-from US to Germany, Australia to Belgium, UK to Canada. (2) In spite of such massive turnouts and show of people power protesters have met with violence from the police authority as well as anti-democratic thugs. The occupation of public space continues today with people camping on streets as Hong Kong demands public / human rights to determine their lives-participatory democracy. (3)

Right to equal participation in development in DC and Baltimore:participatory development

In the District of Columbia, public housing residents have been organizing and demanding that the city government and housing authority stop development which threatens their displacement and continue gentrification. OneDC, a local grassroots organization has led the momentum for resident-owned and -driven development for many years. Now they confront city officials to demand that they are part of all development plans which involve their community. (4) Such a demand, representation in decisions that affects your life, seems quite reasonable and certainly would be an assumption for those in power. But for these same individuals who make decisions for public housing residents, their exclusion of residents from planning seems to suggest that these rights should not be afforded to low-income and of-color communities. Such blatant discrimination in housing and community development and urban planning in the US is meeting greater challenge as evidenced by OneDC’s challenge to the powerful stakeholders’ deciding the faith of public housing residents in the ‘People’s Platform’. (4) They are demanding participatory development.

In Baltimore, RHA (Right to Housing Alliance) and residents have led the charge to assure HUD’s recent program to privatize public housing (RAD, Rental Assistance Demonstration) does not leave residents with no rights. While some have called for minimizing or removing private capital from this demonstration project, Baltimore has demanded that residents remain a direct party in the decision-making between management and tenants. (5,6) Even though everyone would expect such a right, HABC appears to feel that public housing residents should relinquish their rights to decision-making in their homes. Such discrimination by Baltimore’s city leaders, supported by neo-liberal policies and programs of the US continue to assure that those without power remain separated from and at the mercy of those with power. RHA has organized and rallied in support of more transparent decision-making and negotiation on contracts being formulated for private developers-demanding participatory development. (6, scroll down for full article by Cohen).

The development for community equity has not found a foothold in Baltimore as yet, but we have hope that participatory development will rise up in Baltimore. The recent project announced in Sharp Leadenhall could potentially lead to more gentrification or equity: dependent on resident’s organizing and assuring a place at the decision-making table with a Community Benefits Agreement in hand for negotiation. (7) Anything else would leave too much dependence on the developer to make a ‘good-faith’ effort to accomplish in regard benefit to existing community. In the past, these ‘good-faith’ efforts, whether in legalize or verbal, have amounted to nothing. This is evidenced by the current Hopkins/EBDI/Casey development in East Baltimore which continues to project moderate and market rate housing, more Hopkins buildings, a school to attract higher income residents, a hotel and a park intended to benefit new residents while affordable housing or permanent employment for local residents remain missing. East Baltimore residents may well heed West Baltimore’s lead in suing the state of Maryland for development of transit-Red Line train system- which excluded their participation in deciding on a route which will disrupt their community and cause harm. (8) All of these development projects continue to receive large government subsidies in the form of new market tax credits, state grants and loans, TIFs, and PILOTs. The city of Baltimore could easily assure that these government subsides make their way back into the pockets of residents by legislating affordable housing in each development is assured for 99 years, a living wage is paid by all new businesses which receive government subsidies, and mandating local/co-op business ownership in each development area. New York City recently legislated a realistic living wage mandate for development and businesses which receive more than $1 million in city subsidies. (9) The current wage of $7.25/hr required by law in the state of Maryland will do absolutely nothing to lift working class people out of poverty, if they benefit from employment in new or ongoing development projects-some ongoing development projects are exempt from recent local-hiring mandates exempting major developments that have benefitted unfairly from public subsidies such as the Hopkins project in East Baltimore. Until we revolutionalize the accepted unjust and neo-liberal policies and practices governing housing, community, and economic development in Maryland we will continue to grow the health and wealth disparity gap in Baltimore, already ranked in the top 10 (of 50 big cities) in regard income inequality. (10)

Government can prevent foreclosure

Across the US citizens affected by the foreclosure crisis-an outcome which was enabled by the banking industry and real estate groups- are demanding their rights through legal strategies. Several cities are challenging the courts to allow city governments to use eminent domain to take late or default mortgages and negotiate with residents for a more affordable rate. For example, New Jersey admits that this strategy may force banks to negotiate with owners for fear of their mortgages being taken by the city through eminent domain. (11) Richmond, California has already implemented eminent domain to seize mortgages greater than the value of homes with San Francisco pending a decision next week on similar strategies. The two cities are considering pooling resources and promoting a national movement toward taking underwater mortgages back from lenders and offering home owners a more affordable mortgage. (12) The use of eminent domain in this way forces lenders who participated in driving up the housing market through loans based on ghost collateral to re-negotiate in more just ways with those they offered credit. City governments willing to stand up for public rights welcome in a new era of democratic participation through public offices. Cities which continue to document foreclosure challenges, like Baltimore, would benefit from similar strategies for participatory democracy. (13)

participatory democracy

1. Live stream from Occupy Central / Umbrella Revolution in Hong Kong
2. Solidarity for Hong Kong across the world
3. Ongoing coverage from Hong Kong news sources
4.People’s Platform for an Equitable DC
5. Rental Assistance Demonstration Program
6. Right to Housing Alliance, RHA
7. Proposed mega-project in Sharp-Leadenhall get tentative support
8. W. Baltimore homeowners sue state to block Red Line
9. DeBlasio to raise living wage
10. Gentrification, inequality, and the paths toward housing equity.
11. New Jersey Mayor address foreclosure problems
12. San Francisco to decide on eminent domain to prevent foreclosures
13. 2007-2013 foreclosure data in Baltimore, MD

Join the discussion about bringing ‘community’ into community rebuilding: how would you do it?

at Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library-
Today, Tuesday at 6:30pm, February 25, 2014

Race, Class, Power, and Organizing in East Baltimore: Rebuilding Abandoned Communities in America

Enoch Pratt Free Library Black History Month Book event

Interview: Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast, WYPR

Audio of presentation/discussion; Q&A starts at 45 mins, discussion starts at 61 mins

Audience discussion/suggestions in regard community rebuilding for better outcomes: Audience disucssion Pratt Library.2.25.14

PDF of presentation: Send a contact request!

Study Circle Pamphlet: Race and class determine ‘who gets the land’

Dear friends,

The link below will allow access to a web version of a pamphlet developed for study circles addressing community organizing and community rebuilding in Middle East and East Baltimore. The ‘points of reflections’ on the last pages uses the book as a resource.
There is also a print version of this pamphlet which will print into a 2-sided pamphlet, front to back, and can be stapled for convenience. Please be in touch with me if you would like access to the print version.

Please use as a tool on this path of changing the status quo of rebuilding disinvested and abandoned communities for the white and middle and upper classes while neglecting low income and historic communities of color-and the acute and long-term trauma caused by these oppressive and discriminatory practices.

In spirit!

RebuildingMEBaltimore_PamphletWEB_FINAL2.pdf>

Rebuilding Middle East Baltimore:
Race and class determine ‘who gets the land’
Marisela B Gomez
www.mariselabgomez.com

Images: Groundbreaking for Hopkins student housing during 2 rebuilding projects in East Baltimore (1956 Broadway Redevelopment Project, black and white photo; 2001-current Johns Hopkins and EBDI Development Project, color photo). In both, more than 800 households, of low income and African American people, were displaced to make room for Johns Hopkins expansion. The legacy of this history of power imbalance continues today, in the people and the spaces of East Baltimore.

Harbor Point development points to powerful corruption and inequity again: let’s change the tide!

The project

The data we have on this current development is this: Harbor Point developers are proposing a 1 billion dollar price tag and expecting 107 million dollars in public assistance (in the form of tax increment financing, TIFs) to build an office tower for Exelon, housing, and a park subsidized by the city (another 21 million). Payment of property taxes back to the city would not begin until 2025. The promise from the developer is that the Harbor Point project would benefit the pockets of poverty nearby. Nearby is the Middle-East/Perkins Home Community with some of the worst social and economic indicators across Baltimore city. Demogra.Perk.Balt At the first public hearing on this proposed public subsidy, residents from nearby Perkins Home testified that the past developments in the Harbor-Inner Harbor and Harbor East- are not accessible to them because “we can’t afford the $6.00 ice cream cones sold there?”. They wanted to know how this proposed development would be one that was accessible to them and from which they could benefit.

Harbor Point subsidy hearing, Baltimore City Hall, July 10, 2013

Would these majority African American people be able to walk the sidewalks of this new development without scrutiny by police on segways or tourists. Or will it be another addition to the growing gentrification of Baltimore city with walls of police and manicured parks separating the rich and the poor? Would there be jobs with living wages which offer apprenticeship training and a career ladder out of poverty? Would there be affordable housing for low-income people? Would there be amenities priced for people of all incomes or would the pricing select out those who are welcomed to the new development? And would there be appropriate vocational and job readiness and treatment programs addressing all the social and health determinants of unemployment, homelessness and risk of homelessness, and poverty?

The promises

Will the new mixed-income housing which the developer promises will have teachers as neighbors of the wealthy be the extent of affordable housing? In the past years low-income housing has been conveniently replaced by work-force housing-targeting teachers, firewomen and others- affordable to a different income level than that of a family of 3 living on $19,000/year-considered poverty-level income by the US Federal Register. Will Harbor Point include housing to accommodate a family of 3 living on $19,000 per year? To this end will there be amendments to the Harbor Point tax incentive legislation requiring a percentage of housing accommodate this low-income population? The need for low-income housing is urgent as Baltimore continues to demolish existing very low-income and public housing in East Baltimore for gentrification projects (Johns Hopkins/East Baltimore Development Inc; Jefferson Luxury Apartments at Wolfe and Fayette; Brentwood Village). A report by Joan Jacobson in 2007 showed a 15-year period of decrease (42%) in occupied public housing in Baltimore city with little concrete plans for replacement. Housing Report Meanwhile the percent of female single headed households have increased over this same period.

The developer also promised 6000 new jobs from the Harbor Point development. Sounds familiar? Remember that 8000-job promise from the Johns Hopkins/EBDI project which delivered approximately 1000 in 12 years? Again, what will the city council legislate to hold this private developer accountable to the public subsidies that could otherwise be spent on recreation centers and parks in neighborhoods affected by closed recreation centers and firehouses and unkept parks? Instead this project is proposing subsidy for a park; similar to the public subsidy for the 7 acre park in the Hopkins/EBDI development.

Harbor Point developer promising jobs at hearing, Baltimore City Hall, July 17, 2013

Strategies for change

The promise to benefit the surrounding community by the developer for Harbor Point must be legally binding and specify strategies to address readying a workforce to access employment offered by the development. If the plan is to benefit the unemployed then the social and health determinants that lead to unemployment must be identified and remedied. Those unprepared to enter the workforce must be prepared; those addicted to drugs and alcohol or affected by mental illness must be offered opportunity for treatment and retraining. A comprehensive community development project must include programs and processes identified through Health and Environmental Impact Assessments implemented during the planning phase to prepare the local community to benefit from employment opportunity and determine the effect of building on a buried and capped chromium hazardous waste site. “Chromium testimony at July 16 Harbor Point public hearing”>

The patterns are stark as we continue to watch our public dollars subsidize the wealth of the powerful 10% while the gap between the rich and the poor grow. This continued trend of growing income inequality, racial and spatial segregation and its correlation with unstable economies continue to be documented both nationally and internationally. (Residential Segregation, Spatial Mismatch and Economic Growth across US Metropolitan Areas. Urban Studies. March 1, 2013 Urban Stud-2013) A growing body of evidence proposes improving these social inequities to improve rapid economic growth. It is time for Baltimore elected representatives and appointed government officials to stop corrupt and uninformed practices that continue to marginalize people of low-income and color by giving the ‘right of the city’ to a majority white and middle and wealthy class. A community reinvestment contract or community benefits agreement could target funds to the surrounding community to assess and address its needs. Unlike the failed promises of the Hopkins/EBDI project of ‘channeling 3 percent of any city bonds and other eligible public funds and up to 2 percent of income from commercial leases in the [biotech] park, along with a percentage of the money from the sale of any land to developers, into community reinvestment projects’ to benefit the surrounding community, a legally binding contract must be enacted to assure fulfillment. (Baltimore Sun, 16 April 2002)

Inequality leads to social tension and political instability, thus lowering certainty, investment, and economic growth. (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press. Been Down So Long: Weak Market Cities and Regional Equity. (2008) Been_Down_So_Long. Therefore social and economic subsidies which address the causes of social tension, income inequality and its causes, should be as primary as tax subsidies to the wealthy to incentivize economic growth in cities with high rates of health and wealth gaps. Instead of large tax incentives and government-private bonds to the developer, social impact bonds (SIB) can be investigated as credible ways to invest public and private trust in remedying social indicators which in turn lead to a competent workforce and communities ready to learn and become self sufficient. http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/07/social-impact-bonds And the return on this investment is no longer than the return on current tax subsidies to developers. More stable and equitable communities in housing, income, education, and race/ethnicity leads to an economy which can maintain resilience from changing market forces, regionally, nationally, internationally and stem the tide of growing inequality.Resilience in changing times The Harbor Point project, if used in a way to target much needed funds to the city’s most needy communities, could be the beginning of Baltimore moving away from its past and current history of race and class corruption and exploitation to one of shared economic benefit and good health for a broader population.

Changing the tide

History shows us that private interests take public subsidies and grow their wealth with little benefit to the surrounding communities of poor and low income. Or maybe we should call it by the more acceptable term of ‘neoliberal take-over of the city’: the continued takeover of community rebuilding processes where government gives up its responsibility to assure that public dollars in a community and economic development project assures that ALL the public benefits. Instead our government ‘leaders’ have been turning over subsidies to private developers who ‘say’ they will rebuild an area to benefit the city with no analysis or evaluation of whether they deliver on promised outcomes. Case in point is the debacle of continued inequitable growth in the Johns Hopkins/EBDI development in East Baltimore made transparent through the Daily Record’s investigative series. The inequity was evident by the lack of construction, jobs for local residents, affordable housing, and non-transparent financial accounting and embarrassed the city council to hold the private:public development board accountable for more than 500 million dollars in public subsidies.

If the city is willing to continue to subsidize private interests with public funds then it must be ready to mandate that the private interests subsidize government’s role to the public in addressing its responsibilities to the public. It’s the only just and economically sensible solution in a neoliberal state! Let’s make our voices heard and NOT let the Baltimore City Council off the hook on this public subsidy legislation by demanding legislation that assures equity to the communities most affected by wealth and health disparities. This type of political action is not only just, it is good for the economy and the health of the community. Let us point the way to equitable and sustainable development in Baltimore. The third public hearing on the Harbor Point development will be held August 7, 2013 at 5pm at City Hall.

Waiting in the heat outside Baltimore City Hall’s closed doors for the Harbor Point subsidy hearing, July 17, 2013

Chapter 10, Epilogue added

Go to ‘Book’ page, ‘Book Content’ on drop-down menu

Effects of inequitable funding of neighborhood resources: disparity in accessing wealth and good health

Clifton Park Library Hours 2001 N. Wolfe Street

This week while attempting to deliver a book to the Clifton Park Library at 2001 N. Wolfe Street, Baltimore I was struck by the hours posted on the window. Basically it was open 4.5 hours three days of the week and 4 hours on another day for a total of 17.5 hours each week (4 days/week). This seemed such a short amount of time for a community to access a resource: both for children and adults. Knowing the hours of at least 5 other libraries this seemed like much less so I called the library and asked if the sign was current. After this was confirmed-also confirmed was that there is only part-time staff employed- I printed out the hours of all the libraries in the city for comparison then checked the racial makeup, earnings, and high school biology passing rate of the neighborhoods of each library (Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance). The data is clear, Clifton Park is a community with some of the lowest socioeconomic indicators as well as a majority African American population.[Balt.Disparity.Library.Race.Income.Biol] [BNIA; Enoch Pratt Free Library] Unfortunately, besides this distinction of the library with the least hours of operation in the city of Baltimore, several other communities in Baltimore boast a similar SES as Clifton Park.

Disparity in education, employment, health

An editorial co-authored by a Johns Hopkins researcher at the School of Education stated nationwide only 70% of African Americans receive a high school diploma in 4 years, compared to 80% in the general population. In an economy where employment is dependent on knowledge-base, only 40% of jobs are open to those with a high school diploma suggesting a growing demand for a population with college-level education for average employment. Therefore a child in Clifton Park who is already challenged by the conditions and spaces of poverty (under-resourced schools and libraries, recreation centers, health centers, extra-curricular activities for learning) and being a racial minority is already at risk for lack of employment opportunity in the future.

According to a study from another Johns Hopkins University researcher, students typically loose one to two months of reading and math skills during summer break. This lost is reportedly greater in low-income children. Experts advise that reading during the summer is an important way to minimize this loss which is cumulative and results in greater risk of a low-income youth not graduating from high school or entering college. With the two risk factors of low-income and being African American, children living and growing up in Clifton Park face greater likelihood of an inequitable future. It seems that having the opportunity to access a library only between the hours of 1-5:30 pm 3 days each week and 1-5:00 pm 1 day each week is a neighborhood resource that we could begin to address to increase their likelihood of graduating from high school and accessing employment. This employment should be the kind that pays a living wage with benefits that allows a path toward equal opportunity and good health. Indeed the places where our children live and grow affects their daily functioning and their ability to thrive in the future.

It is not only the opportunity for employment which is affected by under-funding neighborhood resources. These same chronically abandoned and disinvested communities are the ones which show the greatest disparity in health in Baltimore-shorter life expectancy, increased mortality risk. [Equity Matters/Place Matters] This research shows that in comparison to neighborhoods with shorter life expectancy and increased mortality risk, neighborhoods with longer life expectancy tend to offer less exposure to pollution and violence, access to better health care and healthier food, and other neighborhood characteristics such as abandoned and vacant housing. [Afro Thomas-Lester, A. November 17 2012]

Disparity in government spending for neighborhood resources

Why do these disparities in neighborhood resources exist and what is the role of government in addressing such disparities? If the places in which we live and grow matters in affecting our access to equity in health and wealth how do we assure that our neighborhoods are rebuilt to address these resultant disparities? It is interesting and important research and commentary from the Johns Hopkins University down the street from Clifton Park which at this very moment is expanding itself through the benefit of excessive government investment-millions of tax incentives from the city and state government.

Johns Hopkins Graduate Student Tower (r) 929 N. Wolfe St.
Parking garage (l). Both constructed within the past year

These are the same governments which choose not to allocate funds and invest in the future of our historically disinvested neighborhoods- ie funding the library in Clifton Park. These communities which receive disparate resources from all levels of government in turn have a negative effect on the health of the place- underfunded housing, schools, transportation, stores, recreations, infrastructure- and therefore the ability of the place to nourish the mind and body of growing children.

Besides the example of an underfunded library in Clifton Park, other neighborhood resources and institutions are underfunded across Baltimore. There are un-funded and underfunded recreation centers in Baltimore city-some now closed- which help young minds grow after school and during the summer. Five recreation centers and four Police Athletic League (PAL) facilities were closed between 2011-2013 [Baltimore Brew Reutter M, Feb 8, 2013]. They were all in low-income communities. Only this year was a long-term plan adopted to address the history of disinvested schools which provide the basic skills for chances of accessing a college education and equal opportunities later in life. [Baltimore Brew Fern S, April 3, 2013] Disinvested upkeep in the safety and security of neighborhoods continue most recently with 20 reported shootings and 8 deaths over one weekend. [Baltimore Sun Fenton J, June 25 2013] Such insecurity results in fear of businesses and other retailers to locate in neighborhoods perceived as unsafe. These perceptions, some supported by evidence, result in lack of supermarkets with healthy nutrition, choice of amenities, and higher prices for fresh produce and vegetables. Lack of adequate funding for fire stations to prevent lost of life, home, and business and the subsequent stress resulting from fears and worry of such occurrences is also a sign and symptom of abandoned communities. [Baltimore Brew Reutter M, May 10 2012] People in neighborhoods resourced with adequate numbers of fire stations don’t have to think or worry about these things and therefore have one less stress on the mind and body-which affects health outcomes. We cannot forget the need for adequately resourced and safe housing for all citizens, whether young or old, white or of African descent, male or female, public or privately owned or rented. Currently seniors in Northwest Baltimore must picket the Housing Authority of Baltimore for safety and sanitation issues in their housing complex due to lack of response from this office and eventual responses of ‘budget limitations’. [Baltimore Brew Fern S, June 21 2013] The clear evidence is that the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland continues to under-fund and disinvest our basic amenities in our most vulnerable neighborhoods while offering up big incentives and investments for those already with great resources [Daily Record Simmons M, Jacobson J, Feb 1 2011].

Why do the public officials elected to represent the people ignore this continued disinvestment of our most vulnerable and the resultant growth in the health and wealth divide? Why does the city of Baltimore and the state of Maryland continue to allocate resources to the communities who have the most while turning a blind eye on the historically disinvested communities-communities which have been victims of racist and classist policies and practices by a city and state which not only refuses to acknowledge this history and make repairs but insist on bulldozing through select neighborhoods to continue segregation and gentrification to serve the white and middle and upper classes. [Race, class, power, and organizing in East Baltimore] This growing process of gentrification continues unabated with rhetoric of ‘helping the existing community’ even while existing residents and businesses are displaced through eminent domain or eventual un-affordability. Evidence of more recent gentrification projects in Fells Points and the Inner Harbor reflecting this pattern in Baltimore is the increase in white student enrollment and white students living and decrease in African American student enrollment. [BNIA] [Houses rehabbed 01-09][BNIA] Of course association does not mean causation so continued tracking and evaluation must occur.

What will it take for us to recognize that continued subsidies to the wealthy developer builds the gap between those with means and those without. That unequal societies are unhealthy and result in greater separation and more violence. That unfair laws and policies continue to support public:private partnerships which maintain low-income communities and communities of color through displacement and separation while growing the wealth of developers and the market they serve through public subsidies-low-cost sale of public and private-land, interest-free loans, tax-free periods, PILOT (payment in lieu of financing), TIFs (Tax increment financing), Enterprise Zone tax-breaks. The likes of current and proposed benefactors of such corrupt anti-public practices include Johns Hopkins, EBDI, Forest City in East Baltimore, Paterakis and Beaty (H&S Bakery) and colleagues in Harbor East and Harbor Point, Lexington Square Partners and colleagues for the Lexington Street Superblock, CBAC Gaming and Caesar’s casino and colleagues in West Baltimore, Under Armour in Sourhwest Baltimore. We cannot forget the direct subsidies such as the recent state-approved 1.3 million contribution toward construction of a 7-acre park of the Hopkins-EBDI-Forest City gentrification project in East Baltimore community. Or the additional state funds for a new contract community school -Henderson-Hopkins- not welcoming to the existing community [Baltimore Sun June 22, 2013] Meanwhile, the Mayor of Baltimore proposes a water bill increase which challenges the budget of low-income and fixed-income people in the city while likely presents ittle challenge to the class of people her administration is welcoming to rebuild the city. This political corruption, cronyism, and public:private partnerships continue as government neglects the libraries, schools, recreation centers, infrastructure, security, and fire stations and other neighborhood resources which would help assure that everyone lives in a safe and healthy community which supports children ready to learn and access skills toward future equitable economic prosperity. Instead these big developments have proposed and produced little stimulation to the local economy-EBDI construction projects fails to meet their promises of local hiring in their first 10 years; Lexington Street Superblock project promises employment with approximately $20,000 annual wage. Still the past and current Mayor’s administration and city council in Baltimore continue to approve and propose public subsidies with no guarantee of public benefit. Why do so many think this is okay? Is it because we have become complacent to the inequality and inequity which has grown the city at the whims of those with power? Do we not see the glaring inequity because it has been around us for so long, perhaps even believing that at some level our social norms are okay though unjust?

Thinking, speaking, and acting to change the accepted norms of inequitable distribution of resources

We must all become more informed
– about the political corruption that has and currently exists
– of the effects of the history of such corruption and how it has grown the wealth and health gap in Baltimore and beyond with disproportionate effects on African American communities
– of alternative ways of rebuilding our communities toward equity and sustainability
– about the stories and lives of local communities directly impacted by inequality and their vision for change
– about building coalitions across diverse interests
– about challenging the accepted norms that race, class, and other systematic inequities are okay because they have been around for so long
and act for change in our individual communities and interest groups and across communities and coalitions through organizing.

We can be inspired to various forms of actions through old and new examples of organizing and resistance. Effective organizing can stop the abusive power of the wealthy and government to take back the offices of government for authentic representation of the people and build community-led initiatives to take back our communities. The current and historical mantra and practice of rebuilding communities through gentrification must end. We should ONLY gentrify a community if the majority of the gentrifiers are the existing residents. How do the existing residents and businesses become gentrifiers in their own neighborhoods? This can happen when existing residents are not displaced to allow a different race and class of people to take over the neighborhood; living-wage jobs with health and retirement benefits are created along with local business-ownership and investment opportunities; affordable housing and alternative models of rent control are instituted as part of development plans; recreational centers, parks and schools are co-created and advised by and serve the existing residents; transportation changes, entertainment and other retail amenities are advised and serve the existing community; mental and physical health services are created to meet the needs of the existing community after assessment for health needs; vocational and other types of training programs and schools which prepare existing residents to benefit from the rebuilding process and outcome are part of the development plan. This model of ‘community gentrification’ is a slower one and not the immediate change so typical for our culture of ‘instant gratification’: instant gentrification. Bringing in people who are already gentrified simply continues the history of serving the needs of those who have power while continuing the disinvestment in and hiding of those who have been neglected by historic and current racist and classist laws and policies resulting in our currently marginalized and exploited communities. In order for the existing residents to become the gentrifiers, they must be involved in the changes in their community and be co-planners. Such plans should include the rebuilding of the people and the place through economic, health, and educational gain-gentrification from the ground up. If community change does not support this type of ‘community gentrification’ it should not be supported by government subsidies.

A changing tide?

It is apparent that the continued outcry by affected residents and representatives, the media, and community activists and organizers in Baltimore over the past several years in light of the growing political cronyism, income and health inequality, and abuses of power is having some small impact on those elected to represent the people. One example is the recent legislation introduced into the Baltimore City Council in regard the proposed rebuilding of Harbor Point. The legislation proposed a concrete way to assure shared benefit for existing residents and developer from the $52 million enterprise zone tax-break through allocation of $16 million directly to the low-income community which qualified the project for this tax break [Daily Record Simmons, M June 24 2013]. If passed, this type of legislation along with critical planning, decision-making, and implementation by existing residents of the area begins to redistribute public benefits directly back to impacted residents and seed and grow an economic base. Similar legislation aimed at assuring public benefit from public subsidies was targeted in recent legislation approved by the same city council: local hiring law requires 51% of jobs go to city residents if the developer receives more than 5 million in public subsidy. [Baltimore Sun Broadwater, L June 4 2013] While public subsidies are often offered to developers due to the impoverished and under-resourced state of low-income communities in which they develop, a systematic evaluation of exactly how these subsidies benefit the historic people and place of the rebuilt area is missing in Baltimore. Evaluation of this local hiring legislation and the pending Harbor Point legislation will be necessary to assure implementation and intended outcome.

The systematic organizing by residents, organizers, and community partners in Middle East Baltimore to change the current $1.8 billion ‘negro removal’ and gentrification project of Johns Hopkins, EBDI, Forest City-generously supported by Annie E. Casey Foundation, and government/public subsidies- was effective. It resulted in 1) changes in the amount of money individuals were compensated for homes taken by eminent domain; 2) changes in the unhealthy demolition practices that were occurring and development of a new demolition protocol now adapted by the state of Maryland; 3) opportunity for some residents to remain in the rebuilt community. [Race, class, power, and organizing in East Baltimore] This organizing success showed Baltimore and beyond that when residents are organized they become powerful in their own right and can change the game plan of powerful developers and public: private-driven partnerships that do not equitably benefit communities.

Here are more hopeful examples of a changing tide:

– Grassroots citizens group in New Jersey boot entire city council after council attempted to use eminent domain to seize their land for private development http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/13/attempted-land-grab-ends-with-voters-boo
– New London, Connecticut’s ‘carefully considered plan’ justifying using eminent domain to demolish an entire community for private economic development has developed nothing in almost 10 years http://reason.com/blog/2012/04/27/connecticut-agency-seeks-to-whitewash-it
– House Judiciary Committee approves legislation to protect property from certain eminent domain transfers http://www.loansafe.org/bill-to-protect-private-property-rights
– Civil rights leader supported by comprehensive plan for community-led rebuilding elected mayor of Jackson, Mississippi http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/6/civil_rights_veteran_chokwe_lumumba_elected
– Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative’s John Barros runs for mayor of Boston https://vimeo.com/64914877 while DSNI practices a resident-driven planning process http://www.dsni.org/neighbors-begin-planning-city-owned-land-dudley-street
– Cleaveland model: worker-owned co-ops and their expansion in the future http://www.thenation.com/article/cleveland-model?page=0,1#axzz2XMzg8poa
– East Baltimore residents protest lack of employment opportunities at Hopkins/EBDI/Forest City development http://thedailyrecord.com/video/2012/03/29/protest-at-ebdi-lead-to-arrests/
– Poppleton residents organize and testify to save award-winning park from developer http://www.baltimorebrew.com/2013/04/05/poppleton-residents-rally-to-save-award-winning-neighborhood-park/
– Opponents of a proposed Royal Farms store in Hamilton gather evidence showing public:private power in deciding what happens in their community and rally against developer and mayor http://www.baltimorebrew.com/2013/05/28/opponents-of-hamilton-royal-farms-say-project-is-anointed-from-on-high/

Change is happening everywhere! and we can be inspired to act for change toward equity -in ourselves and our communities, right here in Baltimore and beyond. We can be part of the changing tide that assures a sustainable future for all through equitable distribution of resources in all neighborhoods today.

Clifton Park Library 2001 N. Wolfe Street

Local residents protest for jobs at the Johns Hopkins/EBDI/Forest City Development in 2012. In the background, Graduate Student Tower 929 N. Wolfe St (l), Hopkins Biotech Building 855 N. Wolfe St. (m) both constructed within the past 6 years with minimal local hire. Photo: Maximillian Franz

Renaming history to hide past and present racism and classism in East Baltimore

The recent article ‘Prospect of prosperity means loss of name: ‘Rebranding’ Middle East at the cost of its heritage’ on May 26 by Steve Kilar suggests that we just have to accept that branding by public-private partnerships rule the day and any history which reminds us of what needs to change to make us a more equitable city is removed.

Perhaps it is more about keeping the biggest employer Johns Hopkins University and Hospital, aka as the powerful 1% of Maryland basking in its continuously expanding geography in East Baltimore, feel safe and happy? A name change in line with its vision of a ‘mixed-income’ community and its decision of whose history is worthy of being preserved and whose is forgotten simply reflects its power.

A bit more reflective of the process of this suggested name change would be the agreement with residents by Forest City and EBDI not to change the name after residents said they did not want this to happen. Nevertheless, off they scampered with those public funds to hire yet another marketing firm to do yet another campaign. The public meetings where this current new name was supposedly presented to and accepted by the community were not really public; public is when all the affected community is made aware and invited. The process of community input by EBDI and Forest City is to target selected community members who will not rock ‘their’ boat on the way to a white-washed community of means. Meanwhile it is exactly this repeated history of non-transparency, back-door meetings, and land-grabbing by the powerful Johns Hopkins supported by its public and private partners which must be acknowledged and changed to prevent the continuous uprooting of historic low income and African American residents to accommodate the elite university.  

But how can it when the history continues to be buried and renamed and residents continue to be displaced: out of sight out of mind. This history continues to repeat itself evident by the initial 14 acres of Hopkins in 1889 expanded to the current 70+ acres in 2013. Where are those thousands of families who previously lived in the 60+ acres next to the temporary and changing borders of Johns Hopkins and its affiliates? Where do they live? How have they benefited from the expansion of Johns Hopkins into their land? What happened to their voice in rebuilding their community, their social networks that provided stability? We cannot honestly answer these questions because we have systematically abandoned, disrupted, and displaced the history of this community to make way for the ever expanding giant of Johns Hopkins? Will the name of the community change to seal this lost history? 

Will our segregated-separate and unequal- city every change or simply grow more so? There remains hope if we keep lifting up the truth in the midst of the glamorous changes being shoved down residents’ throats. Let us remember what Mayor O’Malley said in 2001 at the beginning of this project: ‘We really need to arrive at a common vision that can be shared by Johns Hopkins and the citizens of East Baltimore… If that can’t happen, I’m not going to force it down anybody’s throat’. (‘City, Hopkins weigh plan for east-side development More than 20 blocks could be razed for `bioscience park’; Building on city’s strengths’ The Sun 11 January 2001) Well Governor O’Malley, there is some major forcing going on so maybe you can step in and facilitate that common vision! Unless that was just convenient rhetoric back then when your administration was buying public support for a project which never intended to respect the human rights of residents abandoned and marginalized by past and current inequitable systems, policies, and practices? A project which always intended to bury a history of one people for the continued expansion of another.