I looked up at the big abandoned property at Laurens Street and North Fulton Avenue in West Baltimore and had one of those moments when you not only see what is but imagine what was.
The three-story brick building, I later learned, went up in 1920; it was easy to imagine it as a thriving corner grocery store once upon a time. But now, just a shell of its former self, it struck me as a candidate for demolition.
To my surprise, however, the building sold at auction in October for $41,800. Somebody must have seen potential there.
It might be hard to believe, but such sales actually happen in Baltimore, and some vacant properties are turned into livable spaces. The problem is, there are lots of vacants, and more of them turn up every year.
People seem mystified that this continues. I’m not.
Remember: In 1970, Baltimore’s population was more than 900,000. Today, it’s just below 600,000. No one should be shocked that the city still has more than 15,000 abandoned properties, including old corner groceries and other businesses. When you think about this sprawling metropolis losing a third of its population — about 310,000 people — over 50 years, then 15,000 doesn’t seem like a crazy number. Layer in the time-consuming legal issues related to vacants and their owners, and you have what seems to be a never-ending challenge for city government.
In the wake of the tragic deaths of three Baltimore firefighters in the collapse of a vacant rowhouse, Mayor Brandon Scott has ordered a comprehensive review of the city’s efforts, something that should take a competent government about 10 minutes. The city’s Vacants to Value program has been in place for 12 years now. We should know how many there are, who owns them and what their status is. There should be no need to reinvent the wheel here.
What’s needed are more resources, more money.
An Abell Foundation report in 2015 concluded that Vacants to Value had made only modest progress against the vast inventory of vacants. The report concluded that “a lack of jobs, decades of disinvestment and population loss” made it difficult to spur investment in neighborhoods with lots of vacants and few thriving businesses. The report also cited “a lack of financing, and a limited response by a government strained by a lack of resources.”
So how does the city accelerate the disposition of the vacants — those that can still be saved — on a transformative scale?
I’ve made suggestions before, just about every time there’s a new mayor — not that they ever listen to me — and we’ve unfortunately had five of them in 13 years.
But again, here goes:
Baltimore should amass a large fund of investment dollars — hundreds of millions in capital — and offer loans for the purchase and rehabilitation of vacant properties through Baltimore Community Lending, certified by the U.S. Treasury as a Community Development Financial Institution. This is not a city agency; it’s an independent, mission-driven nonprofit, and that’s key to making this happen.
The BCL can work around bureaucracy and politics and do what the big banks won’t do — invest in marginal areas of the city dying for rebirth. BCL has been quietly doing so for more than three decades, making loans to small businesses and financing redevelopment projects.
Readers of this column might remember that, in an open letter last year to Michael Bloomberg, I suggested that the Hopkins-educated billionaire pour some of his fortune into BCL for low-interest loans to first-time homebuyers, with the focus on converting vacants into affordable houses. Used properly and leveraged wisely, even half a Bloomberg billion could lead to billions in economic benefit for years.
Watchen Harris Bruce is the president and CEO of BCL. I asked her if BCL could handle $500 million or even $1 billion from Bloomberg.
“This kind of money would be transformative for BCL and its work in housing and business development,” she said, ready to take it on. “We will set up a special fund for accountability and reporting to the funders and all stakeholders.”
The goal would be to increase homeownership and support small businesses in neglected parts of Baltimore on a scale that could move the city from one struggling with population loss and disinvestment to one that would grow in a sustainable and more equitable way.
If getting Bloomberg to invest sounds far-fetched, I threw it out there mainly to raise the idea of this special loan fund, specifically for the purchase and renovation of vacant properties, under BCL’s management. The money could go to individual homebuyers and to groups that have been working in the homeownership arena for years — Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake, for instance.
It would be great if Bloomberg responded. (It would be even greater if the city actually asked him for the gift.) But the money could come from other sources — from the city’s $641 million share of American Rescue Plan funds, from the state, from foundations, from large institutions looking to make direct contributions to underserved communities without politics and bureaucracy botching things up.
Anyone could donate to the effort to turn vacants from eyesores and fire hazards to useful properties and affordable homes.
And such a fund, such an effort would serve as a meaningful and lasting memorial to Paul Butrim, Kenny Lacayo and Kelsey Sadler, the firefighters we lost last month in that vacant house on Stricker Street.
