By Chrissy M. Thornton Special to the AFRO
Baltimore is experiencing a wave of momentum around its vacant housing strategy. The Mayor’s Office, BUILD, and the Greater Baltimore Committee have aligned around “Bold Moves” and bold solutions. The Governor’s Reinvestment and Reimagination Task Force is working to redirect state resources into communities that have long been neglected. And our Baltimore City Housing Commissioner has made it clear that her vision is rooted in community upliftment, not displacement. These are powerful signals. They show that Baltimore is ready to do more than manage a crisis – we’re ready to build with equity in mind. But as we embrace this momentum around our vacant housing strategy, we must also be clear-eyed: affordable housing alone won’t get us there.
Baltimore is a city that knows what it means to survive. To hustle, rebuild, reimagine, and fight for its future. But for too long, we’ve tried to fix systemic problems with band-aid solutions. I’ve taken note that no matter where the conversation begins, there’s a traditional and common refrain that arises in government and nonprofit circles: “We need more affordable housing.”
It’s not wrong – but, this nonprofit leader thinks it’s not enough.
It should be impossible to ignore the deep, deliberate architecture of racial exclusion that shaped Baltimore’s housing market. This wasn’t accidental. Black families weren’t just pushed to the margins – they were locked out of opportunity by design. Redlining, racial covenants, blockbusting, and urban renewal schemes weren’t just unfortunate policies of the past; they were tools of oppression that still define the map of our city today.
Yet, we continue to allow our conversations to slide into a disproportionate focus on affordable housing as the fix. Affordable housing alone will not repair what these systems broke. In fact, when misapplied, it risks reinforcing the very dynamics we claim to be fighting against – segregation, poverty concentration, and economic exclusion.
If we want a better future for Baltimore, especially for Black Baltimoreans, we must expand our vision. We need more than affordable housing – we need mixed-income communities, homeownership opportunities, and access to economic mobility. We need to stop treating poverty as a condition to be managed and start building a city where everyone can thrive. We MUST focus on repairing the region’s market by focusing on root causes and increasing economic opportunities.
Affordable housing, while necessary, has limits. On its own, it too often leads to the concentration of low-income households in already disinvested neighborhoods. It separates people from the very resources (high-quality schools, safe streets, reliable transit, and job opportunities) that help break cycles of generational poverty. It’s a model designed for shelter, not transformation.
We see it all the time: affordable units placed in areas with few amenities, little upward mobility, and no pathway to equity. Families get a roof over their heads, but not a future they can invest in. And that’s the problem. You can’t build generational wealth from a rental unit.
Baltimore needs to stay focused on a wealth-building model and avoid the trap of allowing a social service framework alone to steer the repair. That means designing housing policies that allow Black families to not only live in this city, but to own a stake in it. We know that homeownership isn’t just about pride, it’s about power. It’s about creating intergenerational security, giving families something to pass down, borrow against, and build on.
In a city where Black homeownership is significantly lower than white homeownership and where historic redlining still haunts our economic landscape, this must be a priority. Without targeted investment in Black homeownership, we are simply maintaining a status quo that was built to fail us.
But homeownership alone isn’t the full solution either. It must be paired with mixed-income housing development and economic development strategies that uplift entire communities. When we build neighborhoods that include families across income levels, we don’t just share physical space, we share resources, opportunity, and hope.
Mixed-income neighborhoods tend to have stronger schools, lower crime rates, and greater civic participation. They attract businesses, increase local investment, and build social capital across class lines. And most importantly, they provide an alternative to the isolation and stigmatization that too often defines low-income housing.
This isn’t about pushing poor people out of the city. It’s about refusing to keep them locked into areas with limited potential. It’s about making sure that every Baltimorean, regardless of income, can live adjacent to hope and success, not segregated from it.
A social service model that centers scarcity, survival, and basic needs, has a role to play, but it cannot be the whole story. It doesn’t build equity. It doesn’t create a legacy. And it doesn’t empower Black families to lead in their own communities. At best, it stabilizes; at worst, it cages.
By contrast, a wealth-building model centers on ownership, access, and transformation. It treats Black residents not as problems to be managed, but as stakeholders, entrepreneurs, and future homeowners who deserve to live in neighborhoods of opportunity, not just affordability.
What does this look like in practice?
It means expanding inclusionary zoning so that affordable units are integrated into new developments in high-opportunity areas, not just tucked away in already-struggling communities.
It means investing in down payment assistance, expanding credit opportunities, and supporting credit counseling, and financial literacy programs that help Black families become homeowners, not just tenants.
It means aligning housing development with job creation, workforce training, childcare, transit access, and neighborhood revitalization, so that people aren’t just housed, they’re mobilized.
It means preventing displacement through equitable development, and real anti-gentrification strategies that allow long-time residents to stay and benefit from investment, not be priced out of it.
We are capable of rewriting history as we tackle our issue with vacant properties. To do that, we must reject a housing strategy built on survival alone and demand one rooted in dignity, ownership, and generational wealth. We must invest in a city where Black families aren’t just present, they’re powerful, prosperous, and leading the way forward.
Affordable housing is just the beginning. Justice is the goal. We must stay focused.