Statement on the death of three Fire Fighters

Our thoughts are with the fire fighters we lost in the fire on Monday, January 24th - Lt. Kelsey Sadler, Fighter Fighter Kenneth Lacayo, and Lt. Paul Bitrim.  We join their families in mourning their loss, and are thinking about their loved ones, colleagues, and friends each day.

This could have been prevented. As an advocate who has worked tirelessly in the community development field for a long time - working on policies and advocating for more money to eliminate vacant and abandoned properties through rehab or demolition - this tragedy hit home.  It is one of the reasons I ran for office - I trained for this for many years.  And yet, we didn’t get it done. I feel terrible that we could not get it done.

Since taking office, I have advocated for more money and better tools to address vacant and abandoned properties. In addition to avoiding this tragedy in the future, residents in areas plagued by vacancy deserve better. What’s more - our violent crime happens in areas with the most vacancy. By concentrating all of our efforts on eliminating vacant properties, we can also reduce violent crime, improve the quality of life for residents, and avoid a similar tragedy.

This theory is proven in my district. In 2000, the Coldstream Homestead Montebello Community was one of the most violent communities in the Northeast District.  Thanks to the urgent leadership of the CHM Community and my predecessor, over 100 homes - all blight - were acquired by the City and then demolished. CHM has had one murder in 2021.  

I am committing to redouble my efforts. I have been working on legislation to eliminate vacant and abandoned properties in our Black and Brown communities for many months, and now I will finish it and introduce it.  But it will take more than just legislation. We need the MONEY and we need the TOOLS. In August of 2021, I sent a letter to the Mayor asking for $200 million for community development and removal of vacant properties. At the moment, we have no ARPA announcement at all.

Nonprofit community development Organizations like Rebuild Metro, Parity Homes, Park Heights Renaissance, Westport Community Development Corporation, Neighborhood Housing Services of Baltimore, Coldstream Homestead Montebello Community Corporation, and many others have been working hard to transform their respective communities, each with their strategies, funders, and initiatives.  Their work could be amplified exponentially with more funding to assist with vacant property acquisition and rehabilitation to create homeownership and rental opportunities. Subsidy must be available to make the numbers work. I will continue to work tirelessly with these and all developers to ensure we have the funding necessary to reduce and eliminate vacant properties - transforming them into viable housing stock - with our communities that need them most. We will need to put in more funding for these efforts in our annual budget and capital funding requests.

Receivership and tax sale foreclosure are important tools to take properties away from derelict owners and ensure the blight is eliminated. We need assistance from the Courts to make these tools more effective. Our receivership and tax sale foreclosure cases are backed up, not just because of COVID, but because they are caught up in regular business of the court. We will work with the Judiciary to create a vacant housing docket for these cases.  

In the coming weeks, I will be introducing legislation to incentivize development in our Black and Brown communities, as well as ensure that code enforcement continues to occur on vacant buildings. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on the Baltimore City Council and Mayor Scott and his Administration on this important work.