Baltimore City Neighborhood Strategy
Basic Principles
- Baltimore's city government will provide a basic level of service to improve the quality of life in every neighborhood.
- Community development is not just the city government's responsibility.
Neighborhood organizations must organize themselves; speak with one voice; and prioritize their wants and needs. Neighborhoods that take these steps will be supported through matching grants, participation in market-based programs and other means.
- City government will support neighborhood leaders who are working to help themselves.
- City government will take a market-based approach to community development, which builds from strengths and takes advantage of unique opportunities.
In one neighborhood that strength might be a church or school, in another it might be a hospital, in another it might be a park, in another it might be homeownership, or a large number of vacant houses that can be leveled and redeveloped.
- All major cabinet agencies will participate in developing and implementing neighborhood strategies, not just HCD and Planning.
Agencies like Recreation and Parks, the Schools, Public Works, Employment Development and Baltimore Development Corporation will participate in developing strategies and will be tracked to see what impact they are having in neighborhoods. Agencies will be asked: Are you making strategic investments that lift neighborhoods?
- City government will enable and empower community organizations.
Sometimes that means providing tools for neighborhood improvement. Sometimes that means getting out of the way, as in the case of property acquisitions.
- City government will match tools to neighborhood conditions.
We will recognize that neighborhoods that are stable, under stress and under siege have different needs. Each requires some level of support - ranging from simply picking up trash in a reliable manner to reducing crime to enabling large-scale redevelopment.
Tools & Strategies
- Strategic Neighborhood Action Plans (SNAP): SNAP is a community-driven partnership approach to neighborhood investment. It empowers neighborhoods to take control of their own future, have a say in resource allocation decisions, and set local priorities - across city agencies and working with other partners. In the future when communities make requests for city government resources, they will be asked: "Do you have a neighborhood plan, and how does this fit into it." Spending and other resource allocation must be strategic.
- Office of Community Investment: David Costello, Director of the Mayor's Office of Community Investment, is working to strengthen investment partnerships with Baltimore’s vibrant civic, philanthropic and business communities. He is also working to increase the level of both public and private investment in the stabilization and revitalization of Baltimore and its neighborhoods. Additionally, Costello will be working with Community Development Corporations and HCD to leverage funding strategically from Baltimore's banks, empowering CDCs, which, for example, can act more quickly than city government in acquiring and rehabbing houses. Baltimore Main Streets and Healthy Neighborhoods are the first two initiatives to employ this approach.
- Office of Acquisition: After crime and grime, vacant houses are the biggest source of neighborhood frustration and cause for blight. Beginning in January, we will create a separate Office that will identify properties for acquisition, reversing a long-standing aversion to acquiring property. City government has a responsibility to stem decay by intervening before it's too late - controlling and removing sources of blight.
- Human Service Centers: The Neighborhood Service Centers do not work. Therefore, we are eliminating the 9 NSCs and replacing them with 6 Human Service Centers. These new Centers will provide assistance to residents working to achieve self-sufficiency and will help meet emergency needs. They will also include housing inspectors and boarding crews.
- One-Call Customer Service Center: To achieve one stated goal of the old Neighborhood Service Centers - easy access to a broad range of city services - we will create a one-phone-number customer service center that will address resident inquiries and track complaints through abatement. This center, similar to those used by large utilities like BGE and Verizon, will become operational in phases over the next 90 days.
- Office of Neighborhoods: We will achieve another stated goal of the Neighborhood Service Centers by creating the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods, with 6 neighborhood liaisons, which will be a one-stop troubleshooting shop for community organizations - connecting neighborhoods with services across agency lines. Each liaison will have a geographic responsibility, they will report to the Deputy Mayor for Neighborhood and Economic Development and their performance will be tracked through CitiStat to ensure responsiveness
Fri. May 9, 2008