Light Street Housing Corp.
M. Gregory Cantori
809 Light St.
Baltimore, Md. 21230
(410) 539-0134

Most non-profit affordable-housing groups seek to restore decayed neighborhoods by making low-cost housing available there. Light Street Housing is different, and its unique model deserves to be replicated: Working in a rapidly changing, "gentrifying" neighborhood -- Baltimore's Federal Hill, bracketed by the booming Inner Harbor development and the Camden Yards baseball stadium -- Light Street competes with the private sector to acquire and renovate housing that poor people and working people can afford, rather than accepting the conventional wisdom that poor folks must move on when demand drives up the cost of housing.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary in the neighborhood in 1995, Light Street was founded by a coalition of local church congregations, and finds most of the funding for its lean operation (1 1/2 employees, $60,000 annual operating expenses) from those churches' contributions. Using that money and small grants to put together real-estate packages, Light Street has kept a $25,000 capital-funds pool revolving to purchase and renovate, one at a time and mostly through volunteers, a total of 11 buildings that now house 47 individuals who'd otherwise have been gentrified out of the neighborhood. Working in partnership with other non-profits, they've set up housing options for diverse communities: Transitional housing for previously homeless men; another for single women, and more for women with children. One house offers support and specialized counseling for mentally retarded women. Others provide traditional single-room occupancy housing. Together, they provide a healthy mix, scattered amid the market-rate housing that's filling Federal Hill's sturdy row houses.

And now, beginning in October 1994, Light Street Housing has joined in a remarkable new partnership with strong lessons for other communities. "Support For A Change," a three-party effort that provides a potent combination of jobs, support and affordable housing for street men, has already created opportunities and hope for 45 men, with more on the way.

It started when the leaders of three separate groups recognized that each had a strength and a weakness, and that they could add up their strengths by filling each other's gaps. Director Tim Williams of the Downtown Partnership of Baltimore, a quasi-public downtown-improvement district, trying to do something to deter panhandling in the tourist-rich Inner Harbor, took the positive approach of creating decent JOBS for unemployed men -- as litter-cleaners and public-safety workers earning $5.25 an hour and benefits -- rather than merely banishing them to less fortunate neighborhoods, as officials in many cities have done.

But the Partnership, though willing, had a hard time getting men to handle the jobs responsibly. That's where South Baltimore Station, an excellent shelter for homeless people, came in. Director Laurie Schwartz had plenty of experience counseling men and helping them get their acts together, but hadn't had much luck finding them jobs. Finally, Light Street Housing filled another gap by providing low-cost housing -- its particular strength -- for men in the program. With all three parts in place, the partnership made sense. Light Street got a $117,000 grant from the Able Foundation to renovate three houses for Support For A Change Participants (and had to reach deep into its own pockets when city government failed to keep its promise to provide a matching grant). IKEA and Ethan Allen donated fine furniture to set up the houses in style, and the residents -- clean and trim in their work uniforms and proud to be getting a fresh start -- are moving in, keeping up their dwellings -- and going to a paying job every morning.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

Send him E-mail.

Back to the @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG Home Page