Ending Poverty in Baltimore
April 21, 2008

On March 28, 2004, the Sunpapers reported on its front page there were 200,000 unemployed persons in Baltimore.  When you consider there are 631,000 residents here, then it is shocking to realize a third of them have no jobs.

Having no job means you have no health insurance, you live in decrepit or temporary housing; you are hungry and you watch your children grow up in rough neighborhoods, attending bad schools.  The poverty in Baltimore is structural.  Put simply, poverty in Baltimore seems to breed more generational poverty.  The socio-economic-political systems contribute (probably unwittingly) to the perpetuation of the poor population in Baltimore. 

Failing schools means you can’t study your way out of poverty, little or no wages mean you cannot work your way out, a sick transit system means you can’t ride to a better paying job.  If you are from a high crime neighborhood, with a record, it is complicated for you to find work, so you probably have no health insurance.  

The Job Opportunities Task Force is a local  organization  whose mission is “to develop and advocate policies and programs to increase the skills, job opportunities, and incomes of low-skill, low-income workers and job seekers”.  Last year, JOTF released a study, “Overpriced and Underserved: How the Market Is Failing Low-Wage Baltimoreans”. In it, they detailed the extra costs to being poor, how low wage earners pay more for things than their wealthier neighbors: for their banking, housing, transportation and food.  As absurd as it sounds, the poor pay a tax for being in their state of poverty.  

The best anti-poverty program we could bring to Baltimore is a full employment initiative.  The best way to eliminate poverty is to get everyone a job who wants one.  When folks have a good job paying living wages with benefits, they need not survive on the extension of some minimalist government programs subject to the whims of politics.

There are many unemployed Baltimoreans with criminal records.  And although there are some industries willing to forgive their pasts, many citizens have given up on being employed in the city’s mainstream (officially labeled discouraged workers by the government).   

For those locked out of the mainstream, more efforts should be made to help them become self-employed. 

The conclusion to Scott G. Bullock’s study, “Baltimore: No Harbor for Entrepreneurs” says it best:

A combination of state and local regulations has eliminated too many entry-level opportunities in Baltimore-whether in vending, newsstand operation, taxicab driving or trash removal. Although sports teams and tourism certainly bring jobs and dollars into the downtown area, Baltimore's small shops and entry-level entrepreneurs are also a vital, year-round source of employment and opportunity for those struggling to gain a foothold on the economic ladder. Removal of the barriers and regulations documented in this study will go a long way toward making Baltimore once again a center of commercial activity-whether the enterprises be large or small.

Perhaps local colleges such as Loyola and Morgan State can put together massive plans to help unemployed individuals become entrepreneurs.  Perhaps the University of Maryland’s School of Social Work Community Outreach Service and Sojourner-Douglass College can organize students to take those plans out to the streets to help get those self-employment plans implemented.  Perhaps JHU’s Schools of Public Health and Medicine can canvass the streets to steer individuals addicted to drugs or drink to treatment programs before they attempt to start a business. 

It would be great for Baltimore to have cooperation among the institutions of higher learning to launch a full employment initiative in Baltimore City— the goal being jobs at living wages with benefits for all or self employment for individuals who desire it.  The poor are waiting for us to act in their behalf while the rest of us are wandering in the desert—forty years now.

Ralph E. Moore, Jr.

Director of the Community Center

St. Frances Academy