By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
The Baltimore Vacants Reinvestment Council (BVRC) released its fiscal year (FY) 2025 annual report on Oct. 20. Established in October 2024 by Gov. Wes Moore (D) through his Reinvest Baltimore executive order, the council brings together community, government, corporate and philanthropic leaders under the mission of revitalizing 5,000 vacant properties within five years.
The new report lays out how city, state and private partners are aligning $100 million in state funding across FY25 and FY26 to aid coordinated, whole-block redevelopment strategies aimed at building stronger neighborhoods. The $100 million will help fund demolition and renovation of more than 2,000 vacant properties in the city.
In FY25, the state allocated $50 million to support the Baltimore reinvestment initiative, marking a significant investment in addressing vacant properties in Baltimore City. Their report included a list of recommendations to create a more refined process to meet their goals. A few of those suggestions include revising the BVRC’s Dashboard to track production on priority blocks.
“For far too long, there have been far too many vacant properties in Baltimore, limiting opportunities for homeownership, small businesses and other revitalization activities that unlock the economic potential of Baltimore,” said Jake Day, council chair and secretary of the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development. “The Baltimore Vacants Reinvestment Council was created to guide investment and strategy to responsibly and rapidly reduce Baltimore’s glut of vacant properties. This report is a reflection of the significant progress that has been achieved and offers recommendations to further improve and accelerate Reinvest Baltimore’s vacancy reduction efforts.”
According to the City of Baltimore, the region was stuck at around 16,000 vacant properties for decades. Under Mayor Brandon M. Scott’s (D) administration, that number has dropped to 12,349 vacant properties as of Oct. 28. About 10,874 vacant properties have been rehabilitated, according to the Department of Housing and Community Development Dashboard.
The Reinvest Baltimore initiative acknowledges that Black Baltimoreans are heavily impacted by the clustered vacant properties around the city. According to a regional report by Peter M. Dolkart and Adam Scavette, neighborhoods with the most significant share of abandoned properties are majority-Black and low-income, such as Sandtown-Winchester and Harlem Park (31 percent), Southwest Baltimore (29 percent) and Greenmount East (27 percent).
“By focusing on improving delivery chains, expanding opportunity and anchoring our decision-making in data, the Baltimore Vacants Reinvestment Council is poised to drive the transformation our communities deserve,” said the city’s Chief Administrative Officer Faith Leach.
As the council heads into year two of Reinvest Baltimore, a key focus is boosting and expediting vacant property redevelopment throughout the city.
“Baltimore City has made historic progress on crime and now it’s time to make history again by making housing vacancy an artifact of our past,” said Beth Blauer, councilmember and vice president for public impact initiatives at Johns Hopkins University. “Our communities deserve to be whole and vibrant.”