Baltimore's Black communities get more environmental citations — but no support, say activists

Baltimore City officials issue more environmental citations in Black neighborhoods with lower-than-average median household income, according to data made available via Open Baltimore.

The five Baltimore neighborhoods that receive the most citations per capita are all at least 75% Black, according to the Baltimore Neighborhood Indicators Alliance, a nonprofit that collects data about Baltimore. In addition, the most frequently cited neighborhoods have median household incomes below that of Baltimore as a whole.

Four of these five neighborhoods are adjacent, in the northeastern section of the city. The most-cited area - Clifton-Berea, along Belair Road - receives over 2.5 citations per capita. This is over two and a half times the rate of citations in the next-most-cited neighborhood (Midway/Coldstream), and five times that of the most cited majority white neighborhood (Morrel Park/Violetville).

Once issued, citations carry financial penalties that can be as low as $50 or as many hundreds. Dumping over 25 pounds of trash carries a penalty of $1,000. One fine issued for "unsafe conditions" in 2019 in the Clifton-Berea carried a $4,500 penalty. According to the city government's website, unpaid fines for certain citations may result in liens on a property which "could go to auction during a tax sale."

"The best thing would be to stabilize housing outcomes for existing residents," said Nneka N'namdi, founder of Fight Blight Bmore, a local advocacy group that seeks to create more livable neighborhoods across the city. Instead, she says, the city's current enforcement policy poses an unfair burden on Baltimore's historically underserved Black population.

The Department of Housing & Community Development (DHCD) issues the most environmental citations, responsible for 93% of all citations since 2012. The Health Department, the next runner-up, has issued just over 5%.

"Service requests [from city residents] are what drive the code enforcement docket," said the chief of communications for DHCD, Tammy Hawley. "Our inspectors have assigned areas. ... While you're out on your route, if you see other violations or things that are questionable, that would be the second driver."

Additionally, she said, a notice of a violation is typically issued, with a period of "usually no longer than 30 days," to correct the infraction before a fine is levied.

N'namdi is not convinced by the service call-driven model employed by the city.

"Residents have been told if they want the neighborhoods to be kept clean they need to call 311," said N'namdi. "The city says, 'We can't be expected to monitor these neighborhoods without your request,' " she said, although the city had plenty of money to "lock up 100,000 people a year ... the police are getting paid."

N'namdi says that even the smallest of fines can be especially ruinous to vulnerable homeowners.

"Those fines can lead a property to being tax delinquent and subject to tax sale, and therefore subject to tax sale foreclosure," she said. "A little thing like not being able to get outside to cut your grass as an elderly or disabled homeowner or or renter could lead someone into homelessness."

Residents feel underserved by fines for things they feel are out of their control.

"We're not given the proper resources. We're not given a fair share," said Caleb Hairston, a Black resident of East Baltimore. "My grandmother's house used to get hit with [citations] because there are rats in the back. ... When the grass gets too long, they'll slap a fine on you."

When asked about the discrepancy between citation rates between Black and white neighborhoods, Hawley said, "This is largely driven by service requests, and that would equate to ... service requests are being called in."

In addition to the citations for overgrown lawns, or "trash accumulation," residents of these neighborhoods must contend with what N'namdi sees as the most serious form of blight facing Baltimore: vacant houses. Clifton-Berea alone has accumulated over 1,250 citations related to vacant housing since 2015; Southwest Baltimore has received over 1,660 in the same period.

N'namdi said that some of these homeowners of vacants are just small-scale owners or inheritors confused by the city's certification process. But the real problem, she said, are "the absentee landlords, folks who own 10, 15, 20, 30 properties. ... The city needs to be about the business of holding those accountable, civilly and criminally."

Abandoned homes can drive down the property values of adjacent properties, which decreases the wealth owned by people actually living in their houses. This is only one burden borne by the communities affected by absentee landlords, according to N'namdi. She says dilapidated adjacent housing makes it difficult to purchase homeowner's insurance. This means that, in addition to the financial burden of fines for untrimmed lawns, residents of neighborhoods like Clifton-Berea must contend with the danger of physical harm posed by unmaintained housing to those who "live, work and play in those neighborhoods," according to N'namdi.

The city has a new program for dealing with derelict properties, said Hawley: judicial in rem foreclosure, enacted statewide in 2019.

"If there's a derelict owner who's just letting fines pile up and there is no intent to get a property in proper order," she said, it "will allow [the city] to foreclose quicker and take ownership of that property." According to a city fact sheet shared with Capital News Service by Hawley, the city will work with communities on the outcomes of properties acquired in this manner.

Above all, N'namdi believes the utmost care must be given to make sure more people currently living in all forms of housing are not displaced. "[We need to be] very focused on neighborhoods that are under threat of gentrification," she said.

Other Black residents are also wary of the city's priorities surrounding new developments.

"You're going to have multimillion-dollar homes being built around the beautiful parkland," said Hairston. "It isn't to attract Black people to the city. See how it shifted like that? We just want a fair share."

"All of these things are connected intersectionally to each other," said N'namdi. Citations, gentrification and landlords sitting on blocks of vacant housing, she maintains, are all a part of "this punitive economy that has been created in Black communities by exploitation, oppression and extraction."

This story was republished with permission from The Baltimore Banner. Visit www.thebaltimorebanner.com for more.