By Eddie Blackstone and Albert Turner
“Your personal things now belong to me.”
This was the response Randy received from his former landlord when he asked to get his medication out of the house after being evicted the day before. Randy, who had fallen behind on rent but had been making strides to catch up, was not only homeless but possession-less. Randy had been working overtime to pay the back-due rent as he knew by catching up before the eviction date he could stay on the property by law. However, the landlord never gave Randy notice of his eviction date as required by Baltimore City law, and because of that lack of notice, Randy had no home or possessions. That is because all possessions left on the property were legally considered “abandoned” and under the control of Randy’s landlord under Baltimore’s abandonment law. Now homeless and living in a shelter, Randy is not only trying to find a new home, but also trying to recover the lost personal possessions that his landlord cruelly taunted him with.
Evictions fall heaviest on Black families in Baltimore. Due to a long history of unemployment, divestment and wealth theft, Black renter eviction rates are 3 times higher than White eviction rates. Black female-headed homes were evicted at a rate 3.9 times higher than White male- headed homes, with Black male-headed households evicted at a rate 2.3 times higher than their White counterparts.
Baltimore’s inhumane “abandonment law” only further exacerbates the harm of eviction for renters, particularly Black renters like Randy. Not only is this law inhumane, it is also unconstitutional. In Todman v. Baltimore City Mayor and City Council, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found on June 10, 2024, that the City had violated the due process property rights of Baltimore renters by passing the abandonment law in 2007 that allows landlords to deprive renters of their possessions without due process. However, the Fourth Circuit did note that the City’s abandonment law could be constitutional if it included a “reclamation period,” a period after the eviction that would allow for renters to recover their personal possessions. Yet, despite the Fourth Circuit declaring the City’s law unconstitutional over 20 months ago, and the filing of a class action lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in damages for renting families who have lost personal possessions, the City still does nothing.
In August 2025, Councilman James Torrence (D-District 7) introduced the Tenants Possessions Recovery Act, Council Bill 25-0087 to finally end this cruel policy and address the Fourth Circuit’s ruling. Torrence’s bill resolves the constitutional deficiency of the City’s current law and protects the City from losing money in future lawsuits – all while providing a small modicum of dignity in the eviction process for renters.
The Act is simple: tenants would have the right to retrieve their personal property within 10 days of the eviction and, if necessary, the tenant could extend this reclamation period to a total of 30 days by paying the landlord for any storage costs incurred between the 10th and 30th day. This reclamation period is sensible and has already been adopted by Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Chicago, Delaware, New Jersey, Washington D.C., with similar reclamation periods in over 30 other states and cities in the country.
Particularly at a time when Black Baltimore families are overrepresented in the continuous federal job cuts made by President Trump, it is important that the City mitigates the harmful effects of eviction on renting families. And for the City Council, passing the Tenant Possessions Recovery Act is a constitutional must that will save the City from further liability.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the AFRO.