BALTIMORE — Which came first - the chicken or the egg? In this case, the question instead is, was it the crime or the blight?
The Greenmount Avenue corridor in North Baltimore has been a source of frustration for police, politicians, and property owners for years. There seems to be some disagreement over what issues are mostly to blame, and the best way to handle them.
"You can't just say it's the business, it's the young people. It is also the vacant properties," Councilwoman Odette Ramos said.
"The empty buildings are not causing the problems with the open drug markets," Matt Herman, principal of Barrus Real Estate Group, said.
Specifically, the corner of Greenmount and Venable Avenues has served as an open air drug market for over a decade.
A brave business owner recently moved in to the building across the street, only to have four of his customers injured in a drive-by shooting on a Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago. It was the second shooting in that spot in about a month. Since then, he's hired armed guards to stand outside the walk-up restaurant, called I Love Seafood.
Matt Herman owns the building, and several others in the Waverly neighborhood. He's frustrated it took a mass shooting to bring attention to a long-neglected part of the city.
"Only now when that's happened, not the bullet holes that we have through our buildings all the time and we have to replace windows, not the shootings that go on between the kids dealing drugs on the corner," he told WMAR-2 News.
But when we spoke to Councilwoman Odette Ramos on Monday, she said violence isn't the only thing preventing progress here, saying, "we have a challenge with the one owner who's not bringing businesses in, and I think if we had more businesses and more eyes on the street, that behavior wouldn't be happening."
But Herman offers an alternative viewpoint, saying it's the crime, vagrancy, and general quality-of-life issues that are keeping quality tenants from wanting to move in.
"Tenants that can pass a background check and that we can prove have the ability to actually make the payments. We actually do work with a lot of new businesses and smaller tenants by giving them free rent, by helping them build out their space, so we can actually make them qualified to be able to go into the space."
Ramos says he and other developers in the area can't just buy the properties, they have to invest in them too.
"The challenge is that the buildings are in really, really bad shape. And so, as a landlord, if you really wanted to put people in there, he would actually improve the property," she told WMAR-2 News on Friday.
But for Herman, that's exactly what he's trying to do. But it's easier said than done.
"I mean right across the street you see construction is going on right now," he said, pointing to the "mural building" located at 3011 Greenmount Avenue. Storefront installation is coming soon to the property.
"These buildings here are very devalued because of the condition of the neighborhood," Herman said, explaining how it's difficult to find a lender. "So we have been using our own funds, our own cash to to build these buildings out, but it's slow."
WMAR-2 News asked Herman why he hasn't given up.
"Because if everybody decided it was too hard and they left then, that'd leave Baltimore in a in a pretty bad state," he said. I care about the city. I think that if I can do it here, it's something that can be done elsewhere in the city. This neighborhood also has a personal connection for me. This is my 25th year living just within walking distance of Waverly Main Street, Greenmount Avenue, so you know, it's a personal thing for me too."
"It's not one person's fault," Councilwoman Ramos said. "It's - all of us need to come together to figure this out and so the notion that people don't want to come because of safety issues, it might be something that's a factor now, but prior to the shooting was not a factor, so that is not a good excuse. We are working on those safety issues to make sure it doesn't happen again."
In that vein, several city agencies, from the Department of Public Works to the Baltimore Police Department, conducted a neighborhood blitz on Wednesday, tagging vacant homes, speaking with neighbors, and dealing with trash and abandoned vehicles. The Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement has been working directly with the young people who had been working the corner.
Police are also going to increase patrols in the area so hopefully the private guards outside I Love Seafood aren't necessary. After concern from neighbors about the type of weapons the guards were carrying, the security company made adjustments.
