BALTIMORE — It's a neighborhood Governor Wes Moore says has gone unseen and unheard for too long. He chose Brooklyn as the place to announce his plan to address "concentrated poverty," because he believes Brooklyn is one of Baltimore's biggest examples of the problem.
“In Maryland statewide, the median household income is $98,000. In Brooklyn, the median income is $35,000. In Maryland statewide, about 1 in 10 students will not finish high school. In Brooklyn, 1 in 3 students will not finish high school. In Maryland statewide, about 1 in 8 children are living in poverty. In Brooklyn, about 1 in 2 children are living in poverty," Moore said. “It’s a story that we keep witnessing all over our state - from Mountain Maryland all the way to the Eastern Shore and everywhere in between. It’s a story that repeats itself - that if you are born in poverty, chances are you will die in poverty.”
So he's asking communities like Brooklyn - what do you need to change that? His plan - called the “ENOUGH Act" - tasks community leaders with coming up with their own proposals to tackle poverty in their backyard. The state would then select communities to get a mix of private and public money. The governor has set aside $15 million in this year's budget for the ENOUGH Act.
The governor says his office is already in the process of recruiting community leaders on the ground.
“The premise of the ENOUGH Act is simple: leaders in our communities will provide the vision. The state will provide the support. [...] “We believe the ones closest to the problems are the ones closest to the solutions. We just need to make sure that they’re at the table," Moore said.
WMAR-2 News asked: In the bill, it says the funding is going to go, in part, to identifying the root causes of poverty. Do we need to spend money to figure out what causes poverty? What are you hoping to learn that we don't already know?
Moore responded, "Once we continue working with communities that are on the ground doing the work, a whole lot of information is going to be determined. […] I think this is not just going to be about capital allocation, it's also really going to be about learning from our community members."
We talked with some of those community members after the governor's announcement. His plan was met with a level of skepticism. But people we talked to on and off camera agreed - change is needed.
“All these promises - anybody can make a promise, but to actually put in the foot work and let us see that it's being done. It's a totally different story,” said David McCrey, who lives in Brooklyn.
Sita, who chose not to give her last name, lives a few blocks away from Brooklyn, but is in Brooklyn often, and says the difference between the two neighborhoods is, “like night and day.”
“I'm tired of walking up and down the street looking at drug dealers, and people that get robbed because they don't have enough money to get what they need. I mean we got a lot of stuff going on down here. I'd like to see a big change,” she said.
The ENOUGH Act still has to pass both chambers before it becomes law. It's currently going through the Senate.
