By Ralph E. Moore, Jr.
Where are the Big Ideas to Help Fix Baltimore’s Brokenness?
During the uprising in 2015 following the death of Freddie Gray, there seemed to be widespread awareness that Baltimore City, one of the structural poorest populations in the nation needed big changes to recover. And so, we waited and wondered what big things we’d see. Police had charges brought against them and the Grand Jury indicted. Folks played drums and danced in the streets in an impromptu ‘justice festival’ on Pennsylvania and North Avenues. Freddie Gray had died while in police custody but citizens felt hopeful that the police would be tried. But the justice system set all six free and media blamed the prosecutor despite the fact that police were not held accountable much in those days.
But what about Baltimore? What became of the promises of change? Where are the ideas? Gone with the hot air…
So, in this 2022 campaign for Governor a Democrat, once candidate for the state’s top executive job, has a big idea that would make Baltimore City (and our whole state by extension) much better. Mike Rosenbaum is the man’s name and he realizes what too few of our leaders seem to grasp: our city suffers from a miasma of deprivation and despair with a touch of over-policing and blaming the victims in the mix of many neighborhoods. The poor neighborhood residents of Baltimore, long neglected, need wealth and income. Mike Rosenbaum’s plan pays attention to that reality. He proposes that the state of Maryland find funds in its $50,000,000,000 (that’s billions) budget to train tens of thousands of poor people in Baltimore with the goal of bringing 50,000 of them into a $60,000 starting yearly income.
Rosenbaum has researched the issue, calculated the costs out and can argue his plan practically down to the last dollar of investment needed to make his plan work. And he can show you how on paper it looks like 250,000 Marylanders would benefit from $30-35/hour jobs that they would be trained for and hired to work. One fifth of the 250,000 new trainees-turned new hires would result in Baltimore City. That is, 50,000 citizens would now be residents of Baltimore: fifty thousand fewer poor people, fifty thousand more trained, fifty thousand potential homeowners, up to fifty thousand more seekers of higher education, more people and their children with better health care and childcare. Kids able to go to better schools of their parents or guardians choices.
Mike Rosenbaum’s proposal would take five years of state government investment to train folks in technology, construction, health care and manufacturing. Yet after that fifth year the state government would see a return of up to 2 to 3 billion dollars a year, according to his website.
Rosenbaum is a businessman who has started a couple of successful companies, Arena Analytics and Catalyte. He has made a science of finding the right people for the right job in the healthcare industry and predicting the success of training those placements.
He thinks Baltimore poor people can be transformed into solid middle-class citizens by using investment, training and careful placements. The fact that he has focused on Baltimore, called on our state to do so and offers a spread sheet of data to back up his plan is unusually detailed and unquestionably hopeful.
For further information about Rosenbaum or his proposal to decrease poverty in Baltimore City and Maryland, go to: https://www.crunchbase.com/person/michael-rosenbaum.
He is no longer running for governor of Maryland but so far his proposal for changing the lives of poor people in this area are seriously worth looking into and perhaps implementing with Rosenbaum as at state Secretary of Labor. Now, that’s an idea!
Calling for Nurses
The nursing shortage: There’s a woman in my family, who just signed up to go to nursing school. Smart move. She is about to reach the age ‘when life begins,’ so she is making a career change. As of February 2021, registered nursing was the fifth-most in-demand job in the American workforce, according to LinkedIn. Mike Irvine’s Linkedin blog entry, “The Most In Demand Jobs Right Now” was posted on March 15, 2021.
One of my sisters has been a Nurse Practitioner for years and one of my grandnieces just attained a nursing degree while another is just getting started on studying to become a nurse. So, we’re doing our part. LOL.
A Showtime Series About Bill Cosby…
Finally, for the last three weeks, Showtime, the cable tv network has been running a series on Bill Cosby, “We Need to Talk About Bill Cosby.” The four parter, created by weiter/director/comic W. Kamau Bell, has been running on Sunday nights at 10:00 PM. Mr. Cosby was a gigantic figure in entertainment and popular culture. In 2012, when I was the director of the Community Center at St. Frances Academy, the Oblate Sisters of Provident had Mrs. and Mrs. Cosby’s name put on the Community Center next to the high school. The Cosbys had not long before made a $2,000,000 gift to the school. They came to the building naming and to a huge fundraising dinner at Martin’s West afterwards. Within the past two or three years, their names were taken down. ‘Nuff sed.
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