Who We Are

I had planned to begin this blog yesterday on Maryland's Arbor Day; we're about to make history with our green rehabs and the symbolism was irresistible. I knew what I wanted to say, but I hadn't come up with a blog title, or should I say it hadn't come down - and I invite you to interpret that however you like - I'm not religious, but I'm full of faith.

Since commencing my responsibilities on Saint Patrick's Day (yes, more green) as the Director of Housing Programs for East Baltimore Development Inc. (EBDI), I've thought about little else than the profound task in front of me and how grateful I am to have it. I turned in too tired last night to obsess that the admittedly limited amount of time spent conjuring a blog title yielded no fruit.

My first thought upon awakening this morning, more than half an hour early at 3:57 AM, was that an apt description of the EBDI footprint, which not so long ago might have been "decaying East Baltimore" or "grim East Baltimore" or "dangerous East Baltimore" is now more accurately "changing East Baltimore." But changing could only be used as an adjective here because we're also employing it as a verb: we are changing East Baltimore.

EBDI is just a part of the "we" - the guiding hand making sure we're all holding hands. Certainly, the residents - both the relocatees and the ones still residing on the preservation blocks - bore and bear a hard-to-imagine burden. I never lose sight that hundreds of family homes became rubble and that uncertainty in places still reigns - but I think not for too much longer, possible only because of the extraordinary commitment, investment, and vision of the balance of the "we" - the Johns Hopkins Institutions, the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Goldseker Foundation, the Greater Baltimore Committee, the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Enterprise Community Partners, the City of Baltimore, Baltimore Housing, the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development, and others.

The reasons are infinite for what took so long and why it's taking so long, but my spiritual side never fails to inform me that things happen when they're supposed to. The beginning of my blog is a day late, but it's not a dollar short.