Mayor Dixon on Defeating Poverty
The entire community shares the responsibility for eliminating poverty – and my administration will take the lead in pulling community partners together in this effort. Clergy and their congregations, community leaders, the school system, federal, state and local governments should work together – in a coordinated fashion to prepare and implement plans to strength families and eliminate poverty.
In city government, I believe for too long we've been offering services and programs in a disjointed way. In my administration, I am working to coordinate our efforts through a Master Plan for our city – with specific plans for individual neighborhoods.
To create a Master Plan, we sought input from the community, business leaders, neighborhood leaders, clergy and their congregations. The next step is to solicit foundation funding, community support, business participation, as well as city government grants, programs and efforts to build on community strengths and address systemic problems.
As a part of the Master Plan, we identified key industry sectors, including health, medical, financial, construction, education and tourism, among others, as a focus for training and opportunities for Baltimore residents. As we work to create more high wage jobs, I also offered my first Executive Order to encourage companies doing work with the city, to hire Baltimore City residents first.
Offered individually, improvements in transportation, housing, education, economic development programs -- will not build on each other to create a network to strengthen families. If jobs are available, but transportation is not – we will continue the cycles of poverty because people can't get to work. My goal is to connect the dots so people can succeed.
At the same time, there are legislative efforts which help reduce poverty – I am proud to support living wage legislation so that in this time of prosperity, in a country as prosperous as the United States, no full-time workers should have to live in poverty. I also work with our federal and state delegations to advocate for affordable, accessible healthcare for all. We must demand more support from our federal government to fund transportation, childcare, and education.
It will take the whole community working together to eliminate poverty, but my administration will continue to connect the dots, so families have the help they need from their community and their government to succeed.
Mayor Dixon on Creating Jobs
As City Council President, I shepherded through the first new comprehensive master plan in 30 years. As Mayor, I am committed to implementing that plan. As called for in the plan, we must retain and attract businesses in the targeted industries that were identified by the Baltimore Workforce Investment Board: 1) healthcare, biotechnology, and life sciences, 2) financial and business services, 4) computer and technology services, 5) construction, 6) hospitality and tourism; and, 7) Port of Baltimore. These are industries in which Baltimore can compete. They are producing most of the high paying jobs with benefits.
First, the most important factor in attracting and retaining businesses is availability of a trained workforce. We must make sure that our training resources are alighted with these industries. Our responsibility is to provide programs or access to programs that increase qualifications and skill sets of city residents.
Second, we must improve access to jobs by enhancing transportation choices for city residents and leverage transit assets for economic development.
Third, we must capitalize on the opportunities presented by the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure Act. There is an enormous opportunity to connect city residents with these jobs. Not all employees surrounding the closing bases will want to relocate. Instead, there will be some combination of new households and new jobs. Current estimates indicate that Baltimore City will receive as many as 3,145 new jobs, many of which will come to the City vacant. It is crucial that we prepare our existing and future workforce for these jobs. The City, lead by the Mayor's Office of Employment Development and the Baltimore City Public School System, will need to not only ensure the development of training programs and curricula in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, but will need to partner with the BRAC employer community and the region to effectively address the issue of obtaining security clearances for prospective area job seekers.
In addition to new households and new jobs, BRAC will bring a multitude of direct and indirect business and contracting opportunities to the City of Baltimore. The department responsible for the coordination of these opportunities is the Mayor's Office of Minority & Women-Owned Business Development. Ms. Carla A. Nelson, the Director of the department, will work directly with City agencies and our regional partners to lead the City's effort in maximizing business and contract opportunities for Small, Local, Minority and Women-Owned businesses here in our City.
Mayor Dixon on Safe and Affordable Housing
The first two steps in providing safe and affordable housing for poor and working class families are to: 1) make it a priority; and, 2) build the strongest team possible within the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) that is capable of building consensus around complex and contentious issues, setting clear goals, accessing government and private sector capital resources, creating public private partnerships, and effective project management.
No single program can produce enough safe, decent and affordable housing to meet the growing need in Baltimore City. A variety of programs is needed to leverage local, state, federal and private funds. The public and private sectors must work together towards a common goal.
In our first six months, my administration has demonstrated leadership on the issue affordable housing. Some of our accomplishments include:
- Inclusionary Housing Bill. My administration led the efforts to find common ground on landmark inclusionary housing legislation, which was approved by City Council in December. Prior to the direct involvement of my administration, the bill floundered. After many meetings and lengthy negotiations, housing advocates and developers endorsed passage of a consensus bill that establishes affordable housing targets for projects receiving major city assistance, including the rezoning of land from industrial to residential. Under the bill, redevelopment projects such as the planned two million square foot redevelopment of the Westport Waterfront will include housing affordable to a range of incomes.
- Increased funding for Affordable Housing. We created and funded the new Inclusionary Housing Offset Fund with a $2 million appropriation in the fiscal year 2008 budget. In addition, we increased CDBG contributions to the Affordable Housing Fund (AHP) to $6 million, doubling the figure from last year. As City Council President, I led the effort to create the AHP, which was established to promote economically diverse housing in Baltimore City neighborhoods. AHP funds are used to acquire and demolish blighted properties in order to create sites for development of modern, economically diverse neighborhoods with housing opportunities affordable to households of all incomes.
- Support to Non-Profit Organizations. This year, we increased by 15% CDBG grants to nonprofit organizations in the coming year. $4.8 million of the CDBG funds will support the administrative and service delivery operations of 64 nonprofit organizations. The funds being awarded reflect a 15.2% increase over last year’s allocation.
- Moving to Work (MTW). Working with our legislative team, we succeeded in preserving the Housing Authority of Baltimore City’s designation and participation in HUD’s MTW demonstration program. A little known but critically important demonstration program, MTW allows public housing authorities to design and test ways to promote self-sufficiency among assisted families, achieve programmatic efficiency and reduce costs, and increase housing choice for low-income households. Flexibility under MTW has enabled the Housing Authority of Baltimore City to increase occupancy rates to 94% from 88% in the last year. Our goal is 97% occupancy within nine month.
- Preserving Affordable Units. We have targeted use of federal HOME funds to preserve and renovate older affordable housing units. In May 2007, for example, DHCD sought and received Board of Estimates approval to use HOME funds to preserve or create a total of 430 affordable rental and homeownership units at four projects throughout the city.
- Beyond Bricks and Mortar. Modeled after nationally acclaimed projects such as the Village at East Lake in Atlanta, my administration is committed to creating viable mixed-income communities. We are expanding the scope of existing housing redevelopments such as Barclay, Poppleton, Uplands, Park Heights and Orchard Ridge (formally Claremont Freedom) to include new and improved public schools, expanded recreational opportunities, and wraparound services for families such as early childhood education, job training, and programs for seniors. Combined, these new neighborhoods will create several thousand new housing units affordable to the poor and working class. We must create new mixed-income communities in which children of all backgrounds can envision success and happiness.
