Rushern Baker’s Uplift Baltimore Plan is a collaborative City / State partnership program to transform communities, empower individuals, and incentivize population and job growth in Baltimore City

Baltimore, Md - Today, Rushern Baker, Democratic candidate for governor and County Executive of Prince George’s County, released “Uplift Baltimore,” a proposed City-State partnership to identify and customize programs to help targeted Baltimore City communities hardest hit by crime, health, housing and employment challenges. Uplift Baltimore, the first comprehensive Baltimore City plan put forward by a candidate for governor, will lay the foundation for an efficient, cost-effective, collaborative effort between the State and the City to proactively transform communities, empower individuals, and incentivize population and job growth while also reversing some of the anti-Baltimore decisions of the Hogan Administration.

“Baltimore City is the economic center of the state. Every Marylander should be rooting for Baltimore’s success because her success benefits all of us,” said Rushern Baker. “We need to make sure that every corner of every block is thriving. Under my plan, collaborative efforts will not only include working with City officials, but with individuals in the community to ensure that policies to transform neighborhoods serve to improve the quality of life of current residents, not to displace them.”

Uplift Baltimore will expand the Transforming Neighborhood Initiative (TNI) -- a holistic, data-driven approach to empowering underserved communities, improving quality of life, and reducing crime -- to Baltimore City; establish a nonprofit/State/City collaboration to create homeownership opportunities for people in their neighborhoods; provide funding for the Redline; provide funding for the State Center; and incentivize population and business growth in targeted neighborhoods without displacement. The plan also provides for a comprehensive audit of tax and grant dollars dedicated to improving the quality of life in Baltimore, ensuring best practices, maximum impact, and greater financial efficiency.

The Baker Administration will expand the County Executive’s successful TNI program statewide by starting with a pilot partnership between the State and the City of Baltimore. Working with the city to determine targeted neighborhoods and areas of focus, the Baker Administration will collaborate with city leadership and residents to consistently and efficiently be proactive and results-focused in delivering wraparound services. Cabinet appointees from the Baker Administration will meet regularly with stakeholders in the community, while also tracking results and monitoring trends.

The Uplift Baltimore path to homeownership program would rehabilitate and build state-of-the-art green housing and create opportunities for homeownership that don’t depend on credit history, savings, or other historic impediments to wealth building. The program would match skillful nonprofits that specialize in housing rehabilitation with targeted neighborhoods plagued with high rates of vacant homes. The plan would enlist other nonprofits to train residents with good rent payment history from targeted communities on community responsibility, personal finances, and homeownership.

When residents graduate from the training program, they will be able to occupy the newly constructed or rehabilitated homes at their previous market-rate rent with a lease-to-own agreement until state taxpayers receive the cost of funding the program from the tenant’s aggregate rent payments. Depending on the per unit investment, the goal will be to have the state repaid within 15 - 20 years. However, the plan proposes allowing the tenants to gain the right to refinance (vest) once total rent payments hit the 50% mark of the original dollars invested. This will allow tenants to assume ownership earlier and taxpayers to get every cent invested in the program back, while helping families move out of poverty.

“When only private developers participate in housing rehabilitation and rents rise, that’s when you see mass displacement. Our goal is to transform communities for the current residents, not force them out,” said Rushern Baker.

Uplift Baltimore will seek to reverse the decades old trend of population loss by focusing efforts on attracting and retaining population and allowing the city to grow organically to add value to the city without burden to operational service infrastructures such as schools, health, and the environment. The program includes proposals of sales tax holidays and other tax incentives for businesses located in targeted communities as well as support for Arts Districts and a new concept of Science Districts.

“It’s time that we invest more in the people and the communities than we do in buildings and bureaucracy,” said Rushern Baker.

The Baker Administration will work with the communities and elected officials of Baltimore to craft any legislation necessary to improve efficiency, expedite bureaucratic processes, assure accountability and flexibility, and strengthen regional cooperation, even if it’s on a temporary or emergency basis. If necessary, stakeholder advisory panels will be formed; compliance audits scheduled; and a program administrator appointed to assure timely execution of any agreed upon initiatives.

“The taxpayers must be confident that every penny spent will be aimed at the goals and not lost to bad policy, poor planning, duplicative efforts, or bureaucratic inefficiency,” said Rushern Baker. “We want a partnership that will succeed and we will do what must be done to ensure results.”

The Uplift Baltimore plan also includes a commitment from the Baker Administration to fund the Red Line and State Center projects in Baltimore City. Baker characterized the Hogan Administration’s decision to cancel those projects as “the biggests betrayal of Baltimore since Robert Irsay snuck the Colts out of town.”

On April 19, Rushern Baker released his Baker Greenprint, a progressive and innovative plan to make Maryland the first state in the country to achieve 100% clean energy and zero waste. As part of the plan, Rushern Baker including a proposal to make Baltimore the clean energy manufacturing of the country. Baltimore is a historic manufacturing city that specializes in big projects. Rushern Baker will incentivize clean energy companies, including wind and solar, to locate in Baltimore. This will revitalize Baltimore’s industrial sector, create an economic engine and make Baltimore a clean energy capital of the country.

The full Uplift Baltimore proposal is available below: