a Home"
While housing prices are low by comparison to the rest of the country, housing affordability continues to be an issue for Baltimore City residents. With a median household income of $42,665, and 11.8% unemployment, Baltimore City is faced with a unique challenge. Baltimore City housing units are 37% owner occupied, 43% renter occupied, and a whopping 20% vacant units.
In 1950, Baltimore was the sixth most populous city in America, with nearly 1 million residents. As the suburbs beckoned and industrial jobs left the city, so too did the people. Last year, the population was down to 611,648 and dropping at an accelerating pace.
But while the people have departed, the homes they occupied are still there. The list of 16,000 vacant houses has remained constant for the last decade. Of those, the city owns about 2,500, plus 7,000 empty lots. With no one to live in them, fix the roof and cut the grass, they slowly succumb to the ravages of time and weather. Entire blocks are left empty and neighborhoods are decimated.
COMING SPRING 2020
YOU are the HERO Baltimore has been waiting for.
HACK BALTIMORE NEEDS YOU
Create sustainable solutions for Baltimore by giving of your time or resources.
Baltimore is a unique and vibrant city, and though there are many reasons why we’re called “Charm City”, we tend to make the news for our flaws rather than our strengths. And hackathons are a great way to engage the broader community to explore technology as a way to help solve them.