By Charlotte Corcoran
A legislative package proposed by Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby could allow Baltimore residents to buy vacant properties for only $1.
The Dollar House program was headed by Roger M. Windsor in the 1970s when it first started. The program sold houses around Sterling Street for $1 if the buyer promised to begin living in the home within six months and completely renovate it within two years.
In 2017, activists called for the mayor at the time, Catherine Pugh, to restart the program. Many people, including city council members, were angry about the city’s little effort to address or fix the thousands of vacant properties, around 10,000 owned by the city government. Though this effort was unsuccessful, it brought housing reform to the forefront of Baltimore politics once more.
Recently, Baltimore City Council President Nick Mosby announced his “House Baltimore” legislative package, which aims to address some of the systemic issues regarding housing legislation. While the package covers other topics like grants to help senior citizens avoid house foreclosure, the central portion consists of the Urban Homesteading Program, which serves as an updated Dollar House program.
Nick Mosby said that the goal behind the program was “to try to develop a pipeline to homeownership for folks who might see homeownership as completely out of the question.” It specifically targets “areas that have been disproportionately disinvested in,” Mosby said, because “the paramount of creating generational wealth is through real estate investment.”
Mosby referenced a 2020 study by the Abdell Foundation, which found that “the homeownership rate in Baltimore City fell from 51% to 47%, and the Black homeownership rate sank to 42%” to demonstrate the immediate need for housing reform. The foundation also reported that around half of the renters in the city spent more than 30% of their income on rent.
This legislature currently gives this opportunity to legacy residents, which Mosby described as “working class folks who live in these communities.” He also hopes to involve people who would otherwise move to the country and use this program as an incentive to “reinvest in their communities.”
He explained that what set the current effort to revive this program apart from previous, unsuccessful attempts was the in-depth process: “In the past, Dollar Homes was just an idea of let’s sell property for a dollar, and that’s great, the difference this time is in the actual a-to-z program that literally walks everyone through step by step to begin to provide access to home ownership.”
Additionally, Mosby hopes to use funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to give $25 thousand grants to help with the cost of home repairs. ARPA provided $641 million to the City of Baltimore, and Mosby has called on Mayor Brandon Scott to invest $200 million into this program.
Mosby said, “$641 million dollars sounds like a lot of money and it is, but when you dissipate it to several different organizations and initiatives and programs and ideas, what are you really going to get as a return on the investment? And what’s going to be your biggest bang for your buck? I really think it’s focusing on some core issues [as] opposed to sprinkling it all around.”
However, Mosby’s legislative package was not received well by other city agency leaders. In a hearing on January 18th, members of Mayor Scott’s cabinet expressed concerns over the bill’s focus, effectiveness, and legality.
Housing Commissioner Alice Kennedy mentioned concerns that the $25,000 loans will not be enough to fully renovate a home and will force participants to spend additional money. She also thought that the time-based restrictions would prove problematic due to the unpredictable nature of construction.
As reported by WYPR, Chief Solicitor Victor Tervala said, “Ultimately, what we're doing in the bill is discriminating against short term residents versus long term residents.” He went on to say that the bills in their current form violate the city charter, which prohibits the council from setting the price of city property.
Finally, many comparisons have been made between this legislature and existing programs, such as the Vacants to Values Program. Cabinet leaders questioned if spending money on a new program would be as effective as putting more money into already existing programs that would be less effort difficult.
The “House Baltimore” legislative package has a long way to go before becoming law, but whether or not it gets passed, it calls on city leaders to take action regarding the housing crisis.
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