Baltimore plans to rehab nearly 13,000 vacant homes, but at what cost?
There are nearly 13,000 vacant homes in neighborhoods across Baltimore, making the decay easy to spot. The city has an ambitious plan to reduce that number to a "functional zero" within the next 15 years at a cost of $3 billion.
WJZ Investigates is taking a closer look at the strategy that could be a game changer for Baltimore's growth and success.
The danger of vacant homes
The thousands of vacant homes across Baltimore pose numerous dangers.
In January 2022, three firefighters, Lieutenant Paul Butrim, firefighter/paramedic Kelsey Sadler, and EMT/firefighter Kenny Lacayo, died in a vacant home on Stricker Street that collapsed.
Earlier Monday, a fire tore through 15 homes on North Fulton Avenue. Preliminary findings show it started in a vacant home where someone was squatting.
Late last year, a vacant home on West Franklin Street erupted in flames with a body inside.
"You never know which way the fire is going to go. It might come down here and engulf the rest of the block this way or wipe the whole block out," said Dennis Hersey, who lives just three doors away.
The home next to him was finally boarded up after more than a month.
"That house there is leaving a black eye on this neighborhood," Hersey said.
The CBS News data team found Carrollton Ridge in Southwest Baltimore has the biggest concentration of vacant homes in the city.
Squatters set fire to a home on Christian Street on fire a year ago.
Eric McKenzie can see it from the rowhouse he rents around the corner, which is also next door to a vacant home.
"Step up and do something about it, McKenzie said. "Either fix up your place or knock it down."
McKenzie said sometimes it sounds like an earthquake in the middle of the night when pieces of the floor start falling from the vacant home next to his.
"I have to call my grandkids, tell them to come out to the center of the house," McKenzie said. "…We're afraid the walls may fall that way."
The plan: zero vacant homes
The blight is not only dangerous, it also costs the city millions in tax revenue and lost investment.
Baltimore has an aggressive plan to change that—tackling every vacant home in the city within 15 years.
Housing Commissioner Alice Kennedy met WJZ Investigates in the Upton neighborhood—the 800 Block of Harlem Avenue—to show the progress on what she calls "Baltimore's renaissance."
"What's different now is this really is work that has intentionality behind it," Kennedy said. "And it is intentional from a standpoint of healing our communities and creating whole-block outcomes."
It took about a decade for the city to acquire 28 homes on Harlem Avenue and 10 more behind them on Edmondson Avenue.
The Harlem Avenue homes have been renovated in a project took about four more years.
"They have new sidewalks, trees, a pocket park, a dog park and a renewed sense of community," Kennedy said.
Kennedy said the overall plan to reduce vacant homes is data-driven and calculates everything down to the streetlights and miles of sidewalks that are needed to re-build neighborhoods.
Construction is still in the early stages on the Edmondson Avenue homes.
"What we've created here is just building on something that was already here: A community that is tight-knit," said Upton Renaissance developer Dean Harrison. "I think sometimes some of these communities get a bad rap, but I think there are much more upsides than downsides."
Maintaining history by rehabbing houses
Wanda Best has lived in Upton since 1990 and rehabbed her own home here.
"I knew it was possible. It took a long time to get everybody else to see, but I knew what these houses could be," Best said of the redevelopment. "These houses are selling before we can even rehab them."
Best appreciates that the city is not just knocking everything down.
"We're maintaining a lot of property because it's vital to the history of this community. This is a historical, African American community and we cannot tear down the fabric of it," Best said.
Kennedy stressed the current plan looks at long-term solutions that will outlast the current administration.
"The plan is not just a four-year plan. This is a 15-year plan," Kennedy said. "We have all the pieces and parts in place. We've been doing this work for years. This isn't like we're starting from zero. We're not starting from scratch."
Previous Baltimore mayors have had ambitious plans to tackle vacant homes as well, including former Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake's 2010 initiative to add 100,000 families to Baltimore in 10 years.
Tools for rehab
Baltimore has some powerful tools to rehab more blocks.
They include the quicker "in rem" foreclosure process where the city can take over homes when tax bills have exceeded home values.
The city is pioneering an unprecedented use of tax-increment financing where Baltimore can issue bonds for distressed homes citywide. It is believed to be the first non-contiguous TIF district.
That money then provides incentives for development — paid back by future property tax dollars when the homes are fixed up.
"Those dollars will be able to be used for a grant towards construction and renovation of our vacant properties as well as providing the support on infrastructure for some of the construction projects in the pipeline as well," Kennedy said.
The commissioner also said there is money available for current homeowners to tackle maintenance on their properties.
How to pay for redevelopment
With Baltimore and Maryland strapped for cash, getting $3 billion is no easy task.
The city has separate proposals before the General Assembly to give the city a share of sales tax revenue like many other cities already get. Some of that money would go to redevelop vacant homes.
Another proposal would increase sales taxes. Part of the money generated would provide a $1,000 property tax rebate.
It could be a tough sell to get it through the Maryland General Assembly. The state has already committed $50 million a year to combat vacant homes.
The long-term goal is to expand the tax base once previously vacant homes are rehabbed.
Baltimore is also working to streamline permits. Delays and red tape have long been struggles for developers.
The initiative is called Bmore FAST with the goal of speeding up the process.
It is just one piece of the puzzle to redeveloping vacant properties, city leaders said.
Commissioner Kennedy noted the city has added staff as well.
"The people resources that are processing permits or the people resources helping administer grants to homeowners—to processing our loans and grants to our developers," Kennedy said. "We've tripled the size of attorneys and paralegals to help file our in rem tax lien foreclosure cases."
Kennedy stressed the overall redevelopment plans.
"We don't do this from the standpoint of the city, the government saying to the community, 'This is what you will have or this is what you are going to get,'" she said. "This work is done in partnership with the community, and it really is us in city government helping to realize the community's vision."
A new home
Jamesetta Howard showed WJZ the new home she moved into last October in the rehabbed block of Harlem Avenue.
"I really wasn't looking for a row home. I wasn't looking for anything this large, and I definitely wasn't looking for West Baltimore, but it was just an offer you couldn't refuse because of all that you get," Howard said.
The expansive interior includes a large kitchen island, a primary suite with its own bathroom, and modern finishes.
Howard's new roof deck looks out over the vacant rowhomes about to be rehabbed, and Howard sees possibilities.
"Look beyond that because that's going to look just like this did. That's exactly how this looked in the beginning," she said. "There are a lot of people who love this city, and we want to see it back to its glory."
