Economy
Baby Steps for Baltimore's Vacant Housing Plan
Program tries to streamline purchase of thousands of vacant properties
Baltimore has 16,000 problems. They sit quietly, largely concentrated in two main clumps just outside the center of the city, starbursting into the periphery. Vacant homes—left or abandoned or ignored or forgotten—have become the scourge of the city. And they’re not going anywhere, not quickly anyway.
But gradually, the city is beginning to check a handful of problem homes off its 16,000-point to-do list. Baltimore is now a year into a program it calls “Vacants to Value,” which targets vacant homes in neighborhoods around the city for renovation, redevelopment or demolition. They’ve tackled 748 of them so far.