In 1910, Baltimore leaders enacted the country’s first residential segregation ordinance that restricted African American homeowners to certain blocks. “Baltimore has long been a tale of two cities,” said Marceline White, executive director of Economic Action Maryland, which joined Banks in filing the complaint and organized a news conference Monday in Poppleton. Poppleton is about 93% Black, according to 2020 census data. The pool and nearby recreation center closed years ago, Banks said. Since then, over 100 occupied homes have been seized, according to the complaint. Some cities are currently working to provide reparations to Black residents, acknowledging the harm caused by urban renewal efforts and other discriminatory practices.īanks reminisced about her children swimming in Poppleton’s public pool while she socialized with neighbors on their stoops. Once relatively common in American cities, using the practice for revitalization and infrastructure projects has largely fallen out of favor. Her landlord sold the house to the city voluntarily in 2018, but other Poppleton homeowners have been subjected to eminent domain, when the government seizes private property for public use. “This was home,” she said, shaking her head. Startled by her presence, two black cats scurried down the second-floor hallway and disappeared into a hiding spot. She also encountered extensive water damage and rotting drywall, unfamiliar furniture, clothes and other personal items. Her eyes settled first on the marbled vinyl floor tiles she installed herself many years ago. Ordered to vacate quickly, her family ended up leaving behind many of their belongings.ĭuring a recent visit to the neighborhood, Banks stepped cautiously through an unsecured back door and peered inside the house, wondering aloud whether squatters had moved in. We could make noise, but nobody would hear us.” “I lost everything,” Banks told The Associated Press. Her experience presents the latest example of Black Baltimoreans losing their homes to redevelopment after watching their neighborhoods suffer from growing disinvestment - while whiter, more affluent communities flourish, Banks and her attorneys argue. Roughly five years later, the house remains standing, and plans to redevelop west Baltimore’s Poppleton neighborhood have largely stalled, even after the city displaced Banks and many of her neighbors.īanks filed a complaint Monday asking federal officials to investigate whether Baltimore’s redevelopment policies are perpetuating racial segregation and violating fair housing laws by disproportionately displacing Black and low-income residents. With nowhere else to go, they spent months sleeping in her aging Ford Explorer. Banks and her children became homeless almost overnight. BALTIMORE (AP) - In 2018, Angela Banks received bad news from her landlord: Baltimore officials were buying her family’s home of four decades, planning to demolish the three-story brick row house to make room for a beleaguered urban renewal project aimed at transforming a historically Black neighborhood.
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