By Jaisal Noor for Yes! Magazine.
Broadcast version by Brett Peveto for Maryland News Connection reporting for the Yes! Media-Public News Service Collaboration

Sonia Eaddy never lost faith that she would be able to save her home at 319 North Carrollton Ave. in the Poppleton neighborhood of West Baltimore.

Like they have done to many predominantly-Black neighborhoods, developers have targeted Poppleton for years. Over the past decade, the city used eminent domain to evict residents and raze their houses, resulting in the displacement of longtime residents.

But last year, Eaddy, who is a third-generation resident of Poppleton, was able to mobilize a citywide coalition that staged rallies, packed public hearings, and collected over 5,000 signatures to save homes like hers from destruction. Even after most of Eaddy's neighbors were forced out of their homes, after surrounding blocks were demolished, and after she exhausted legal appeals, she never stopped fighting.

In July 2022, her activism paid off when the city agreed to allow Eaddy to stay in her home. But she says it's hard to call that a victory until her neighbors who were displaced have an opportunity to return. "We are continually working to help bring back those who were displaced," she says.

As part of the deal the city reached with stakeholders, some residents may have the opportunity to return to their homes. Eleven historic alley houses-which are small homes typically occupied by African Americans or immigrant laborers-on the 1100 block of Sarah Ann Street, located next to Eaddy's, will be renovated for homeownership in preparation for displaced former residents.

The group tasked with the renovation project is Black Women Build, a homeownership and wealth-building initiative that trains Black women in carpentry home restoration by rehabbing some of the 15,000 vacant and deteriorated houses in the city.

Black Women Build is one part of a larger ecosystem of grassroots groups addressing the racial and economic disparities created and perpetuated by unjust housing policy in Baltimore. Other efforts, working in tandem to strive for justice in housing, include housing associations, the city's affordable housing trust fund, a blight-fighting social justice group, and an equitable development company that restores abandoned homes to increase affordable housing stock.

On a rainy mid-October afternoon in Baltimore, Maryland, four dozen residents, housing advocates, and lawmakers rallied in the heart of the city's business district. Their demand to officials was to stop subsidizing wealthy developers at the expense of the city's long-neglected Black, working-class communities.

Towering high-rise office buildings, swanky hotels, high-priced condos, and the Inner Harbor, a major tourist attraction, served as a backdrop for the press conference that laid bare the city's economic and racial disparities.

"The city is becoming unaffordable and unattainable to low- and moderate-income families," said Char McCready at the rally. McCready is executive director of Citizens Planning and Housing Association (CPHA), which trains tenant organizers to advocate for progressive housing policies. Like Black Women Build, CPHA forms a critical part of the housing justice ecosystem.

Officials have long sought to incentivize the creation of affordable housing by offering tax breaks to the real estate sector. But developers are raking in millions of dollars in credits and subsidies, while loopholes allow them to largely avoid building housing that is affordable for the city's majority-Black working people.

"We feel these tax credits may be used to support segregation and encourage gentrification and displacement of BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, people of color] communities," said McCready.

Developers in wealthy areas have received a disproportionate number of tax breaks compared with low-income ones, building 6,600 luxury apartments over the past 15 years, only 37 of which were affordably priced.

At the rally in Baltimore, McCready stood in front of 414 Light Street, a 44-story high-rise luxury apartment building dubbed the tallest residential building in the state. She called it "an example of one of the luxury apartment buildings we speak of," explaining it was "why we chose this location."

Questar, the company that developed 414 Light Street, received a $3 million tax credit from the city to build affordable housing, but officials say the company has yet to market a single unit of housing at an affordable price.

Speakers at the rally argued that if the city can provide subsidies to the wealthy, it can do more to empower communities struggling to overcome poverty amid rising rents for substandard housing, which remains in short supply. A 2016 report found that "more than half of Baltimore renters live in housing they cannot afford." City rents have increased 19% since the start of the pandemic.

At the time this article was written, apartments at 414 Light Street were priced starting at $2,100 for a one-bedroom-a price Baltimore City resident and housing activist Tisha Guthrie says is unaffordable for her neighbors, and she surmised the company's employees would also not be able to afford living there.

Guthrie also says that less than a mile away, in her neighborhood of Poppleton, the community faces crumbling infrastructure, a lack of basic services, and deep poverty. She's been a longtime supporter of residents like Eaddy's fight to save their homes from demolition. And she's advocated for the city to undertake community-guided investment in those communities instead.

As a commissioner of Baltimore's Affordable Housing Trust Fund, Guthrie helps oversee an annual city fund of $20 million to promote affordable housing through such projects as community land trusts. As YES! previously reported, the commission was created and funded as a result of a decade of sustained activism and grassroots pressure.

Guthrie has also been working to support her neighbors in Poppleton-like Eaddy-in their long-standing fight against displacement.

Poppleton is situated between downtown Baltimore and the infamous "Highway to Nowhere," an urban renewal program that tore a wide swath through the area and displaced 1,500 predominantly Black residents, before being abandoned in the 1970s.

The city has a long history of implementing such policies. In 1910, Baltimore mandated racial segregation. Over the following decades, officials supported "urban renewal" and exploitative housing practices that destabilized neighborhoods, decreased Black homeownership rates, fueled a massive racial wealth gap, and concentrated working-class Black communities in slum-like housing.

The harm caused by such policies is incalculable, says Guthrie. "It's not gentrification, it's just a complete dismantling."

Last year, activists painted a mural viewable from the Highway to Nowhere that quotes Sonia Eaddy. "Losing my home is like death to me," it reads. "Eminent Domain law is violent."

As part of her longtime opposition to the development project, Eaddy helped create The Poppleton Plan, an alternative vision for her neighborhood developed in collaboration with other longtime community members and a city planner. It aimed to preserve the character of the neighborhood and prioritize the needs of the community, but policymakers ignored it.

Instead, the city used eminent domain to relocate longtime residents and bulldoze several city blocks. Today, the project remains unfinished, and the neighborhood is littered with the remnants of the demolished buildings.

The Federal Reserve estimates close to 4 in 10 Baltimore residents are rent burdened, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent. This is taken as an indicator that they may have trouble affording food, clothing, transportation, and medical care. A 2021 study found the median net worth for Black households in Baltimore was $0, compared with $59,430 for whites.

Studies show the housing crisis across the U.S. has destabilized communities and furthered cycles of violence. "We found that at least 50% of the homicides that have occurred up until August occurred within 100 feet of a property with a vacant building notice," says Nneka N'namdi of Fight Blight Bmore. Yet the city's spending on its police department far outstrips its spending on housing and other social services.

Just across the Highway to Nowhere, Parity Homes, an equitable development company, is rehabbing three properties that will be available to purchase or rent for legacy residents at an affordable price in spring 2023.

The organization works to address the concerns of the community by listening to their needs. "We really just try to think about all the ways in which people could inadvertently be pushed out of the neighborhood as it gets revitalized, and we try to mitigate that as much as possible," says Parity Homes founder Bree Jones. Jones has been a vocal supporter of Poppleton's residents.

One key part of its work is supporting wealth creation through homeownership. "We integrate wealth through homeownership for Black folks in particular, who have been excluded from that for decades," Jones says.

Jones and N'namdi are part of a coalition working to end the practice of tax sales. If property owners fall behind on their taxes, the city auctions off the right to collect that debt for pennies on the dollar to debt collectors. In 2020, over 1,000 residents lost their homes for what can amount to a few hundred dollars in unpaid property taxes.

The group raised money to purchase the debt of some of the homeowners. Jones explains, "We've paid off the debts of close to 100 homeowners across the city who are at risk of losing their homes."

In the absence of a response from authorities on a scale that will address the problem, Jones remains optimistic that it will be possible, with time, to create and develop an adequate supply of housing that does not cause displacement.

"We think that you can both revitalize the neighborhood and keep legacy residents in that neighborhood."

Oregon lawmakers passed a major housing package in this year's session, but said easing the state's housing crisis will take more work.

Bills passed during the short legislative session will send a total of $376 million to address the state's housing shortage, including Senate Bill 1530 and Senate Bill 1537, priorities for Gov. Tina Kotek.

Shannon Vilhauer, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Oregon, said the governor's housing package is groundbreaking.

"We also see important investments in emergency housing assistance, addiction recovery support and renters protections," Vilhauer pointed out. "Those are all investments that are going to help stabilize Oregonians in need of housing assistance and benefit the communities we all share."

The housing package includes funds for housing and homelessness projects and to support counties buying land and developing properties.

However, Vilhauer argued there is still more to do to address the crisis. During the next legislative session, she hopes the state will help first-time homebuyers, as well as make other investments.

"Preserving affordable rental homes that exist now but are at risk of terming out of their affordability and going market rate," Vilhauer explained. "We'd love to see that affordable housing preservation investment move forward in a strong way."

Vilhauer acknowledged the housing issue in Oregon cannot be solved immediately. It is a problem decades in the making.

"It will take a concerted effort over time to continue to make headway," Vilhauer stressed. "We're starting to get there but we need to keep going with a sustained effort."


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A new report shows Montana has the nation's most rapidly rising homeless population. Advocates for more affordable housing call the situation critical.

One Kalispell-based shelter is asking for state funding to expand, and do what it can to help.

The most recent Annual Homelessness Assessment Report shows Montana saw a 551% increase in its unsheltered population, the steepest rise in the country between 2007 and 2023.

Kalispell-based Samaritan House Executive Director Chris Krager said he feels the pinch every night.

"I like to think we can handle it," said Krager. "We're trying to address it. Samaritan House, we see between 95 and 105 people every night."

That's capacity for Samaritan House, which Krager said has been full every night for a decade - and often has to help people find other options.

He has asked for state funds to expand the facility, which would double its occupancy.

In addition to building single and multi-family housing, Samaritan House also plans to create housing for veterans.

Krager said they often experience mental health issues along with homelessness. The report shows Montana was one of only four states with an increase in homeless veterans.

"Kalispell is the largest city in Montana with no dedicated homeless veteran housing," said Krager. "So, we're going to fix that. The reason this is serious is because the nature of homelessness in Montana - certain times of the year, it could be fatal. So, we want to really be on our game, especially if it's cold out."

More than 30% of people in Montana's homeless shelters reported a mental health and/or substance use disorder in 2022. The report shows in some shelters, that number is nearly two-thirds.




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Georgia lawmakers appear to be taking a major step toward safeguarding property owners against people who occupy homes or apartments illegally, with what's known as the Squatters Reform Act.

House Bill 1017 passed unanimously in both the Georgia House and Senate. It would make illegally occupying personal property a criminal matter, rather than a civil case. This means the rightful owners can get people out of their homes sooner who don't belong there.

The move is expected to bring relief to such residents as Dan Rodgers, who said he once felt squatters had more legal protection than property owners.

"I think the new three-day process is going to benefit a lot of homeowners," Rodgers said. "It seemed like previous squatters' rights were giving them the opportunity to hide behind process."

Under the Squatters Reform Act, people would have to provide valid documentation of their right to occupy the property within three business days or face arrest for criminal trespass. Those who present documents would have their case reviewed within seven days to establish its legitimacy.

Georgia law has required homeowners to file an "Affidavit of Intruder" in the court system to remove squatters from their property, which can take weeks or months. Rodgers, who owns property in Muscogee County, said he hopes the new legislation will serve as a deterrent to those who previously sought to take advantage.

"I don't think that there's very many circumstances we could think of with a normal trespasser having as many protected rights as squatters do, and ending up being able to really affect people's livelihood," he said. "So, I really feel like it's a really good incentive for people to do the right thing."

The bill was sent to Gov. Brian Kemp this week and is pending his signature to become law.


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