A huge redevelopment project planned for East Baltimore has a quiet but emerging partner -- the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which has staked its reputation on making the project succeed while improving the lives of the residents in its path.

In a marked extension of its nationally known work to help disadvantaged children, Casey has committed $5 million to help some 800 households likely to be moved from the blighted neighborhoods north of Johns Hopkins Hospital, where a large biotechnology park is to anchor a blend of related businesses and new and renovated housing.

Working with Hopkins and city officials, the foundation has stepped into the unusual role of key inside player in the project. Its president, Douglas W. Nelson, sits on the board of the nonprofit organization set up to manage the development and relocation. The foundation says its primary goal is to improve the lives of people who will have to move out of the project's way.

The foundation's plans offer plenty of potential, both for risk and for reward. In presenting the project to Casey's trustees recently, Nelson emphasized that the foundation could fail, very expensively and publicly, to fulfill its hopes of improving residents' lives.

"There are no guarantees," Nelson said in an interview. "But the cost or risk of doing nothing to try to change the odds in East Baltimore is the unacceptable risk."

The history of urban redevelopment in the United States has been bleak for the people who are moved to make way for it. Typically, they end up scattered and worse off while their neighborhoods are bulldozed and gentrified, experts say. With this project, Casey hopes to change that history.

The redevelopment, slated to cost $200 million in public funds and millions more from private investors, is expected to take at least 10 years to complete. The city plans to acquire up to 3,300 properties, many of them vacant. The biotech park and related businesses are expected to generate about 8,000 jobs, and hundreds of units of new and renovated housing would be created.

Casey's investment, along with another $5 million from Hopkins, will augment the federal funds proposed to help residents relocate. The extra money will boost the average homeowner's payment to as much as $70,000, plus the value of their homes. That contribution, officials say, was key to the project moving forward.

Nelson estimates that the foundation could ultimately spend $15 million on the project, plus plenty of staff time to provide research and technical assistance.

City Councilwoman Paula Johnson Branch, who has presided over hearings on the project, said the scale of the redevelopment and the debate over it will "test" the talent and resolve of the foundation. But she has been impressed so far.

"Their thought's were very deep," Branch said. "They've also thought about how they can pull it off."

The neighborhoods north of the Hopkins medical complex are beset by high rates of drug addiction, poverty and crime. Some blocks have one or two owner-occupied homes and many more boarded-up buildings.

Some of those who remain -- and many say that in spite of the problems, they want to stay -- are suspicious of anything involving Hopkins, which they accuse of tacitly encouraging blight to ease its prospects for expansion.

Enter Casey, whose move to Baltimore eight years ago has brought increasing expectations from community leaders and nonprofit groups that the foundation's $2.85 billion endowment and national reputation would lead to large investments here.

The foundation caused some consternation this year when it decided to discontinue the Baltimore arm of its large national program "Making Connections," a neighborhood-strengthening initiative under way in a number of cities. While Casey officials said they had pulled back the program because they were planning something much bigger and more unusual for East Baltimore, some residents weren't sure what to expect -- or whether the promises would amount to significant change.

Easing hostility

At a recent fund-raisers' luncheon to accept an award for local "Outstanding Foundation," Nelson said Casey wants to make its mark in East Baltimore. "The truth is, about a year ago I concluded that we at Casey were, quite frankly, not doing enough, especially here in the city that's our home," Nelson told the crowd. He said the foundation needed to learn more and do more about Baltimore's toughest neighborhoods -- to "risk more," and to "spend more."

Those words and the foundation's involvement have eased hostility among some residents who fear that the project will help anyone but them. But no matter how good Casey's intentions, the organization will have a hard time convincing some people that it is on their side. Mistrust -- especially of large institutions -- runs deep.

Therle F. Greene, 78, who has lived in his rowhouse in the 1900 block of E. Madison St. since he was 6 months old, fears moving to new housing in the neighborhood because of what is happening to residents of the 800 block of N. Washington St.

Homes on that street were rehabilitated within the past decade, and residents moved into them so their old houses could make way for redevelopment. Now the new houses are squarely in the middle of the planned biotech project, and the homeowners might have to move again.

"I don't want to be somewhere and you move in the house and about three, four more years [later], they come back and say you're going to have to move again," Greene said.

His 67-year-old wife, Mary Greene, longs to stay in the neighborhood where her 86-year-old mother also lives. She also worries that in or out of the neighborhood, even the bumped-up relocation payment will not be enough to buy a house in move-in condition -- and that many uprooted senior citizens like her won't have the heart, strength or money to remodel.

"They may not have answers for everyone," Mary Greene said.

Lillian Jackson, another senior citizen who has lived for 40 years in the 2200 block of E. Chase St., said her skepticism was softened by Nelson's appearance at a neighborhood meeting, during which he spoke about the foundation's intentions.

"When he talked, I guess he seemed like he was a little sincere," Jackson said. "I have a wait-and-see attitude about all of them. I want to see if they're going to do what they say they're going to do."

'Very skeptical'

If history is any guide, Jackson has reason to wonder.

Chester Hartman, executive director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and an urban renewal expert, said that if Casey succeeds in its vision for East Baltimore, the results would be unprecedented. But, he said, "I'm very skeptical."

Hartman said that Casey's chief executive has put himself in the difficult position of serving as an advocate for residents and supporting the redevelopment that some of those residents oppose.

"If I were the head of the Casey foundation and really wanted to do this, I would distance myself from [the project]," Hartman said. "I would supply information, I would supply resources, but I would not have the people working for me."

But Nelson said that after a great deal of debate within the foundation, he took on the insider's role intentionally.

"You can support lots of services and advocacy on behalf of the residents, but if you're not a stakeholder, it's turned out that's not powerful enough" to ensure that residents' lives are improved, he said.

Joseph Haskins Jr., chairman of Harbor Bank of Maryland and head of the board of the East Baltimore Development Corp., the group that will manage the project, said Casey's role does not present a conflict. "From the standpoint of advocacy for community, community values and family, none of that has been compromised or lost by them being at the table," he said.

Nelson notes progress within the development group that he says stems partly from Casey's advocacy. The corporation's board recently approved a resolution to offer independent, free counseling to residents being moved; a database to tell people about new housing choices; and "a human development agenda" that will help establish a local resource center for services such as child care, job training and education.

Another database will track where residents end up over time, so Casey can measure whether it is meeting its goals, Nelson said. An independent evaluator also will track the relocation's progress.

For the project to work, advocacy must be done in new ways, Haskins said. That's where Casey comes in.

"I don't think we can just look to old models and create this piece," Haskins said. "It warrants us stepping out of the box."