Visitors from New York City

Our guests preparing for their presentation yesterday morning.

Adrian, Housing Coordinator for Picture the Homeless

G-K-M makes a point over pancakes

Marcus - homesteader and occupier of an abandoned home

Housing Organizer of Picture the Homeless

Andres, Adrian and Kalaif checking abandoned homes Reservoir Hill and entertaining the idea of setting a chapter of Picture the Homeless in Baltimore 

Shailah, Stephanie and Andres - very nice kids!

In addition to the work day, we also had a delightful time hosting seven housing activists (including three youths) from NYC for the weekend. They are staff and volunteers (homeless or formerly homeless persons) from Picture the Homeless http://picturethehomeless.org/, an advocacy group on homeless issues.  They came to Baltimore for the Fair Development Conference http://unitedworkersassociation.org/ organized by Workers United which Anna, our housemate, is involved with. Our guests conducted a workshop on the establishment of land trusts and the occupation of vacant homes in NYC. They were lovely guests and really enriched our lives by their brief stay with us. They were articulate and passionate about their mission. Although I disagree with them on why many people are homeless, I concur with their goals of putting people into abandoned homes. Our time with them added a dimension to my understanding of the problem of homelessness.

Among the activities of PTH is the occupation of abandoned houses in NYC through occupation and homesteading (squatting) and using existing New York laws to put homeless persons into vacant housing. They begin to fix up these homes and begin to pay utilities and property taxes to establish a record of occupancy. (I am sure I am not describing the process accurately.) It seems to me that with the thousands of boarded-up homes in Baltimore and the inability of the city to deal effectively with it, we could use an organization such as this. In fact, this is an idea that is brewing among our guests. I took them on a short tour of Reservoir Hill and showed them some blocks with vacant homes where such an approach might work. They were impressed with the possibilities.

Our guests left us late this morning to participate in a United Workers march in downtown Baltimore after which they took a bus back to NYC.

Ellen with our guests