Baltimore Tent City: From Homelessness to Autonomous Transitional Housing Communities
The 10-day Tent City protest/occupation — from August 14–23 — was borne out of the massive housing crisis still unfolding in Baltimore City. The crisis wreaks havoc in the lives of people who are losing or have lost homes and shelter. There are four major prongs to Baltimore’s real estate market attack on housing stability:
1) Mass rental evictions — 1st in nation per capita
2) Mass foreclosures — 4th nationally in metro area foreclosure filings in 2015
3) Cost-burdened housing — 59.3% of Black renters & 45% of Black homeowners pay more than 30% of their income in rent/mortgage
4) Homelessness — about 3,000 Baltimoreans have lost their homes and are homeless on any given night
In other words, Baltimore leads the nation in kicking people out of their 🏡🏠⛺️! It’s quite likely that our housing instability crisis is helping fuel our homicide spike and opioid/fentanyl fatal overdose epidemics.
We know there are other factors contributing to the current crisis of violence and death in Baltimore as well. It’s a complete certainty that many homes in Baltimore are LEAD POISONED revealing that Black Lives nor neighborhoods matter.
Much of the reason why Black Baltimoreans are at risk for losing their homes and homelessness is the double attack of redlining and subpriming in Black communities. Redlining means large swaths of the Black Butterfly are lending deserts, leaving Black residents prey to predatory payday lending, pawn shops, and check cashing locations. Subpriming means Black residents are intentionally targeted by banks to sign mortgages that are tacked with higher more punitive interest rates.
The challenge for Baltimore is to move from the systems and processes that create homelessness to systems and processes that keep people in their homes and support autonomous transitional housing communities. Strategies for keeping people in their homes will be discussed at a later time. Right now, we will delve into the autonomous transitional housing community concept.
Autonomous Transitional Housing Communities
Many of the principles of an autonomous community were laid by the members of the Coalition of Friends/Tubman House collective in Sandtown-Winchester at Tubman Homes (currently Gilmor Homes). The collective — led by former political prisoner and Black Panther Eddie Conway — has occupied vacant property, created multiple community gardens, and opened a haunted house for neighborhood children. They did not wait for the city to give them permission, they exercised their own autonomy to make decisions to help build a thriving community. Black autonomous communities build on the legacy of Black maroons — forming communities in the midst of harsh white supremacist conditions that create life-enhancing and sustainable safe spaces for Black people to thrive and determine the course for their lives.
Tent City West is another attempt to build an autonomous or resident- and activist-run community, but this time with the transition from homelessness to permanent housing at the core. The revolutionary tiny 🏡 design by Davin Hong offers the type of innovative green housing that can help residents build an autonomous transitional housing community (ATHC). Tiny 🏠🏡🏠, designed on behalf of Civic Works, cost $50,000-$60,000 for each unit. If the materials for construction were bought at bulk, the cost could be driven down. Fifteen tiny 🏘🏡🏠 could possibly be built for anywhere between $400,000-$650,000.
The City of Baltimore can establish multiple ATHC locales throughout the city that would allow clusters of 20–30 tiny houses on lots of land. Perhaps abandoned school lots could serve as the hub facility for such locales and be transformed into ATHC hub.
The ATHC project is also tied up with the quest for dismantling Baltimore Apartheid and achieving racial equity. Therefore, it is vitally important that ATHCs are also located in White L and exclusionary White communities so that Tent City residents can live and thrive in communities that have procured structural advantages. The white supremacist legacy of Baltimore’s racial zoning and exclusion must be overcome and the zoning code amended to allow for ATHCs in White communities that fought to exclude Black people for decades — especially Roland Park, Guilford, Homeland, Hampden, Mt. Washington, Lauraville, and Bolton Hill.
Funding could come from a variety of sources: HUD, HABC, the City, CDFIs, CRA funds, and/or philanthropy via donations or social impact bonds. This funding should be directed towards financing:
- a Tent City Housing Cooperative that would put residents in control of constructing and managing tiny houses
- a Tent City Solar Cooperative that would put residents in control of energy production
- a Tent City Food Cooperative so that residents can grow their food and achieve food security
- a Tent City Worker Cooperative that would allow residents to control their own labor
These mechanisms allow residents to build their collective power and chart their own destiny.
Conclusion
Tent City West provides the perfect opportunity for innovative thinking. Residents and activists will be running the ATHC as residents build their capacity for self-governance and self-determination. With solidarity and autonomy, the Tent City movement can help transform our current system from proliferating homelessness and disempowerment to supporting the right to housing and power to the people! You can still donate to support our efforts here. ✊🏾
