Baltimore Governor Larry Hogan recently announced a $700 million investment that would be used to rehabilitate West Baltimore by demolishing thousands of abandoned row houses. The fund will also cover financing of private developers that would build affordable housing in the area.
The announcement was made on January 5, in the neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester, Freddie Gray's home town. Gray was a 25-year-old African American who died in police custody, and his death ignited many protests, where one in 2015 reportedly turned into violence resulting in injuries to 16 police officers. The series of violent incidents in the area pushed the Baltimore government to focus their attention on West Baltimore.
Citylab's report stated an excerpt from Gov. Hogan's speech, "As I walked the streets of this city, people were repeatedly calling out and begging us to help do something about the blight that is all around them," Hogan said in his announcement. "We have heard your calls for action."
The project was officially named Project C.O.R.E. which stands for Creating Opportunities for Renewal and Enterprise. It is a four-year plan that will require a great deal of demolition work; about $75 million in estimate. It will target vacant establishments in West Baltimore area. The goal is to clear the area of those abandoned buildings and replace it with green space areas that would attract future investors.
However, residents and activists in West Baltimore are not too pleased about the C.O.R.E. project. Apparently, this is not the move they have been asking from the government for a quite some time now. What they have been long waiting are better transit options that would allow them to conveniently commute downtown to East Baltimore where they could get better occupations.
Hogan's goal to eliminate blight in the area is promising, but for the residents in the area, project C.O.R.E would only solve the surface problems of their town but won't fuel better opportunities for them compared to the transit project that they have been expecting.
