Antonio Coffield

Baltimore's inner-city neighborhoods are under-invested, and they have all the negative social and economic indicators common to other large US cities. The indicators are well known – chronic poverty, poor quality housing, high unemployment, poor educational results, high crime, poor health, low incomes, and low household net-worth. Many young people experience the criminal justice system.  They then encounter even more difficulties reentering society, getting a job, and earning income.  There is a high degree of crimes, high dropouts, low rate of graduation, high poverty, and the physical and mental crisis of health in the city. There are many residents who are underemployed, unemployed, and unskilled for many of the available high salaried jobs vacancies in Baltimore. Moreover, many people who have been incarcerated cannot find jobs. There are about 17,000 vacant and abandoned buildings in the city that are idle. Baltimore's construction industry needs many more good wo...

Is it enough to see pictures of neighborhood deterioration? Is it enough to hear about how a city neighborhood is perceived as no longer “safe”? While pictures may speak a thousand words, the pain felt by those living in the affected communities can never be truly pictured. What can we do? How we got here is not as important as how we can enact change, and reverse the trend of decay. Urban decay is yet another term used to define neighborhoods scarred from changes to local business, demographics, economics etc. This is a severe issue that is plaguing Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore loses both money and people at an astounding rate, mainly due to the city itself falling into disrepair. In fact, the more people that they lose, the more likely it is that their buildings will never get fixed. While there are many reasons that this may happen, such as the high poverty rate, the fact that 4 out of 5 black youth never graduate, or the high level of former inmates, we as a people have...