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Kelly Cartales, Vice President and Impact Market Leader, Baltimore |
We are excited to bring you the first issue of Baltimore Metro News, Enterprise Baltimore’s online newsletter. Through this inaugural newsletter, we will bring you inspiring stories of the power of partnership and collaboration to build and sustain green, affordable housing; create foreclosure response strategies; help young people excel in school against great odds; and bring together deeply committed volunteers.
Enterprise Baltimore works across Maryland to deliver affordable housing and community solutions. Each quarter, we will highlight the critically important and positive impact that community development makes on the ground.
Times are tough for sure. But even in the midst of extraordinary economic turmoil, amazing things are happening. Enterprise is dedicated to supporting this work and lifting up its lessons to inform key federal, state and local policies.
In the next five years, we will continue our work through partnerships to generate up to 5,000 green, affordable homes, $650 million in capital deployment, and deeper and broader education partnerships. Priorities include responding to foreclosure, serving the most vulnerable, building green, shaping policy, creating new public/private capital tools and developing school-centered community partnerships.
I hope you’ll join Enterprise in these efforts.
Sincerely,
Kelly Cartales
Vice President and Impact Market Leader, Baltimore
Enterprise Community Partners
Unique to Baltimore, Enterprise Women’s Network (EWN) supports and compliments Enterprise’s nonprofit work. EWN channels the energies of women across the Mid-Atlantic region toward helping low-income women improve their quality of life for their children, families and communities. Focusing primarily on the city neighborhood of Sandtown-Winchester, one of the original communities targeted for redevelopment by Enterprise in the 1990s, EWN actively participates in, provides oversight for and funds programs within the 72-square-block community. Read more...
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Photo: Harry Connolly |
Local middle school students and Enterprise volunteers got really muddy at Great Kids Farm in Catonsville, Md., this September. More than 220 pairs of hands sloshed through cold rain to clear brush, plant seeds, clean up sheds, and build worm boxes and rain barrels.
The day honored Enterprise’s co-founder James W. Rouse and was held in conjunction with the United We Serve initiative, President Obama’s national call to service.
Great Kids Farm is an educational and vocational organic farm owned and operated by Baltimore City Public Schools. The farm's dual mission is to teach students about the importance of environmental sustainability, as well as be a direct supplier of nutritional ingredients to the schools as part of the city's plan to reform the nutritional content of cafeteria food.
Tools and supplies were provided in part by Baltimore-based Civic Works. Struever Bros. Eccles and Rouse was also a large part of the event's success.
See a slide show of the entire organization’s participation.
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Photo: Harry Connolly |
Since 2004, Enterprise Green Communities has invested $700 million nationwide to create and preserve nearly 16,000 green, affordable homes. Last year alone, Enterprise financed $43 million in affordable Baltimore-area developments resulting in more than 800 homes that meet the Enterprise Green Communities Criteria or other national standard for energy efficiency, healthy living and sustainable design.
In the last year, six local communities have been created that are green:
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Miller’s Court : Seawall Development completed a $9.4 million rehabilitation of the 77,000-square foot, LEED-certified Miller’s Court in Baltimore’s Charles Village neighborhood. Seawall Development designed the mixed-use community especially for Baltimore teachers. They transformed the vacant, former manufacturing plant into a large office space for Teach for America and 50 apartment homes with affordable rents. See a slide show of the grand opening with Governor Martin O’Malley and Mayor Sheila Dixon.
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Cherrydale Apartments: Enterprise Homes completed the renovation of this 40-year-old development in southern Baltimore’s Cherry Hill neighborhood. The green renovation preserved 186 affordable homes.
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The Greens at Rolling Road: Enterprise Homes developed this community of 83 new green, affordable rental homes for seniors in Catonsville, Md.
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Forest Ridge Apartments: Enterprise Homes completed a $13.8 million green renovation of the 37-year-old Forest Ridge Apartments preserving more than 100 affordable rental homes for low- and moderate-income families in Columbia, Md.
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Renaissance Square: The joint venture of Enterprise Homes and Mark Building completed site work and the first two single-family homes in Renaissance Square located in Essex, Md. The mixed-income community includes 66 homes for families making 60-115 percent of area median income. Completion of the entire community is expected by mid-2012.
- Evergreen Apartments: The Enterprise Homes and Mark Building joint venture completed Evergreen Apartments this fall. There are 81 new, affordable rental homes for seniors in the Renaissance Square community of Essex, Md.
To find out more about Enterprise Green Communities’ impact nationwide, view the landmark study, “Incremental Cost, Measurable Savings: Enterprise Green Communities Criteria.”
The opportunity to greatly expand efforts to address foreclosures in Baltimore may be on the horizon.
As a resource provider and advisor, Enterprise is helping Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development, Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake and St. Ambrose Housing Aid Center acquire and rehabilitate foreclosed properties.
Enterprise provided $106,000 in grants to help the groups implement their programs to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed homes and put them on the market for sale to low- and moderate-income buyers. In addition to grants like these, Enterprise is a key partner in the National Community Stabilization Trust (NCST), a national intermediary created to connect large banks’ inventories of foreclosed properties with cities, counties, states and their partners who can turn them into affordable homes. Enterprise’s support and the burgeoning NCST partnership will help targeted Baltimore neighborhoods remove foreclosed and vacant properties to protect their value and safety.
Also, Enterprise supplied technical and advisory assistance to Healthy Neighborhoods, Inc., a local nonprofit, to lead a consortium of community revitalization organizations and Baltimore’s Department of Housing and Community Development in their application for $26 million from HUD under the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. These resources will help purchase and rehabilitate 350 additional foreclosed or vacant properties in the city.
Enterprise established a city-wide Coordinating Council for the Community Schools Initiative in Baltimore. This council partners with the mayor’s office, the Baltimore City Public School System and the Family League of Baltimore. They worked diligently over the summer to complete the following objectives:
1. Developing a Baltimore model for community schools
2. Establishing a results framework for this effort
3. Developing an advocacy and sustainability plan to move the initiative forward
4. Developing a plan to introduce new partners to support this initiative
On September 23, the council hosted an event for city-wide stakeholders at the Annie E. Casey Foundation to announce the completion of this work and share next steps for moving the effort forward. The event was well attended and Mayor Sheila Dixon served as the keynote speaker.
The accomplishments of this council represent the strengthening of the Community Schools movement in Baltimore, and Enterprise was honored to facilitate this process. The council will continue to meet, and Enterprise will serve as one of the council members.
With generous support from the United Way, Enterprise Baltimore will continue its Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY) program. The early childhood development program is for families with children ages 3-5.
The 30-week curriculum for parents and their children focuses on the development of basic skills and knowledge. Children learn visual discrimination, word comprehension, problem solving, logical thinking, letters, colors and shapes. Parents learn how to prepare their youngsters for preschool.
United Way’s $100,000 gift toward operating the program ensures that parents will continue to get the tools they need to prepare their preschool-aged children to be “ready to learn” when they enter school. United Way’s support is creating a better education environment – in Baltimore homes, schools and communities – from the earliest years.
We are proud to report that both Kelson Elementary/Middle School and Pinderhughes Elementary School exceeded their targets of a 3-5 percent increase in Maryland State Assessment scores.
At Pinderhughes, 100 percent of the fifth graders scored “proficient” or “advanced” in reading. This is a significant improvement from under 70 percent from the previous school year. Also, nearly 95 percent of those students scored “proficient” or “advanced” in math, improving from 61 percent the year before. Pinderhughes met the Maryland State Assessment standard for Annual Yearly Progress.
Though Kelson had a few grades where the test scores dropped, the overall school average improved. Highlights include:
- 65 percent of the eighth graders scored “proficient” or “advanced” on reading, while only 35 percent accomplished this the year before.
- 35 percent of the seventh graders scored “proficient” or “advanced” this year, while only 13 percent accomplished this the year before.
We have identified areas of improvement for Kelson and professional development and training will directly address these areas. In addition, several new teachers have been recruited for Kelson.
Further, Enterprise Baltimore is excited to announce the merger of our two partner schools, Pinderhughes Elementary and Kelson Elementary/Middle School. Enterprise has been working with these two schools as part of our school-centered community development strategy for the past 12 years.
Both schools experienced declining enrollment for the past few years, so Baltimore City Public Schools made the decision to merge the two schools. We celebrate this merger, as it provides Enterprise with the opportunity to maximize our investment and resources instead of splitting it between two schools.
The newly formed school is Pinderhughes Elementary/Middle School. Enterprise supported the development of a transition plan to ensure a successful merger. Included in this plan were activities for parents, students, teachers and community members to learn more about and feel comfortable with this transition.
Part of this transition also included the selection of a principal of the school. Through a community panel process, Federico Adams was named principal. He has been the Kelson principal for the past two years, and he has made significant improvements to school climate, test scores and attendance.
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