Supporting quality affordable homes

Over the past several decades, Baltimore City and Irvington, and Collins Ave. have faced a wide range of challenges in the housing market. In the 1990’s a number of properties on the block were owned by notorious slumlords, who extracted rent without reinvesting in the property. The apartment complex at the top of the street was poorly managed —poorly lit, without amenities for residents or support services of any kind. Michael and Jill worked with residents to pressure ownership to provide higher quality services. In the mid-2000’s the Irvington Woods Apartments were purchased by Volunteers of America, who brought competent management and supports for residents. Collins Streamside residents wrote letters of support for the apartments’ successful application to participate in federal affordable housing programs providing long-term affordable rents. The rising housing market of the 2000’s attracted flippers to the area, who often took vacant or run down houses, put minimal work into them and then sold them at escalated prices.

When the housing bubble burst, several houses were caught up in foreclosure, and sat for several years before being put up for auction. In several cases, Collins Streamside members pooled savings (or refinanced their own homes to take out equity) to purchase homes and put sweat equity into renovating the homes (typically a gut rehab, as shown in above picture of a community workday) in order to ensure they could be high quality affordable homes for Streamside members and refugee families. Streamside members, working with St. Bartholomew’s Episcopal Church, have also pooled funds to help a neighbor who had been renting the same property for 35 years to exercise her legal tenant right of first refusal to purchase her home when the owner decided to sell.