1. Sleeping in the City
Homelessness higher in Baltimore than the state of Maryland
Iman Naima Smith
JOUR479Z
October 20, 2015
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- Photo courtesy of 4photos.net.

2. Sometimes, he chooses a park bench.
Other times, he seeks solitude under a free way overpass, the sounds of civilization posing a
brief lullaby of normalcy.
No matter where 59-year-old Wayne White chooses to rest for the evening, he always makes
it a point to never get too comfortable.
Because White has nowhere to call home, and as a tenant of Baltimore city's streets, in his
words, "It's never safe."
In Baltimore, Md., the number of individuals in poverty is more than double that of the state,
with 23.8 percent of the population living in homelessness in the city compared to 10.1
percent in Maryland, according to recent data presented by the U.S. Census Bureau.
White has been homeless for approximately two years, after spending almost 30 years in
prison. Upon release, he said he was left with no benefits nor any sense of a housing plan. He
applied for Section 8 housing, which he thought resulted in approval.
However, he said the process of house searching proved essentially futile.
"That's just how it is in Baltimore. They give it [housing] to you when they want to give it to
you," White said.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Section 8 Housing Choice
Voucher Program acts as a rental assistance procedure, according to Maryland’s Department
of Housing and Community Development. The program subsidizes the rent of lower-income
families through the use of federal funds.
Families are placed on the waiting list based on the date and time of application.
The Housing Authority of Baltimore City, or HABC, accepted applications last year
beginning Oct. 22, 2014, and concluding Oct. 30, 2014, according to Baltimore Housing.
But this process is extraordinarily competitive and often leaves house hunters left in limbo,
said Scott Gottbreht, assistant director of strategic partnerships at United Way of Central
Maryland.
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3. During the application acceptance period, 74,000 individuals signed up, according to
Gottbrehet. Based on last year’s results, only between 6,000 and 9,000 people will receive a
voucher for Section 8 housing in the city. The waitlists are currently closed.
When it comes down to it, the city struggles with housing because there simply isn’t enough
to go around, Gottbrehet said.
"There's not enough government subsidized housing,” Gottbrehet said. “There's not enough
housing that's simply cheap. No developer is going to come in and make more housing for
poor people because they'll make more profit doing condos for rich people.”
So while White waits in the wings, he’s forced to move from one location to another, doing
his best to stay away from the occasional teenage harassers, who he said sometimes steal and
abuse those living on the street. And far more often than not, the city’s various shelters head
into the status of overflow.
Take for example the Weinberg Housing and Resource Center, a temporary overnight
housing center for the homeless and a common area where the poor, including White, tend to
congregate.
White said once all the beds are taken, you’re given a number and are moved into what he
called “overflow.” Behind the center, those waiting for a bus to transfer them to another
shelter can be seen using neglected box cuttings for bed sheets or porta potties for brief
hygiene maintenance.
The center and the city could not be reached for comment regarding this conflict.
“This place here,” White said, pointing to the resource center behind him, “is for the
homeless. They put people out everyday. They don’t care about these people out here. All
day, the ambulance is here and 90 percent of that building has health problems. The shelters
aren’t doing nothing for nobody.”
Additionally, White said the various tent cities and homeless encampments are often
dismantled.
According to a formal policy introduced into the City Council record in 2013, the city reserves
the right to clear homeless encampments that are deemed unsafe or unsanitary. This is based
on the “Protocol for Dismantling Homeless Encampments,” which was released in an article
by The Baltimore Brew published June 28.
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4. “They [city officials] care more about the county than they do the city. You’ve got women -
you’ve got children - in the streets. Just imagine when it gets colder. They’ll be out here,”
White said.
The Various Definitions and Determinants Surrounding Homelessness
Homelessness has many faces, Gottbreht said.
"The people that you see sleeping on the streets are only five percent of the homeless
population,” Gottbrehet said. “Homeless people include family members who are living
doubled up together, families living in shelters. The homelessness you see really on the
streets is chronic homelessness. But they have somehow become the public face of what it
means to be homeless. The vast majority of homeless folks are homeless for not very long and
just need a little bit of extra help and are homeless mostly through no fault of their own."
More often than not, homelessness is also happenstance.
"I just met this one family with three children,” he said. “The wife kept loosing her job
because she was in the hospital with her husband so much, who had some really advanced
health problems. She worked every day of her life and suddenly he starts having heart
attacks and stuff, and she has to be by his side not knowing what's going to happen with him
and the kids.”
Johnathan Carter, assistant director of community investments and education at United Way
of Central Maryland, said homelessness in the city is rooted in social problems such as
lackluster livable wage jobs, transportation, education - to name a few.
Kaye Love, a 35-year-old resident of West Baltimore, experienced two years of homelessness
after loosing her job in real estate in 2009. Sifting through the job market was tough, Love
said, and for awhile finding housing seemed insurmountable.
"I bounced around from people's houses to houses. I was lucky. I found people who would let
me house-sit for a couple weeks here and there. Eventually, I found a woman who owned
property in Liberty Heights and exchanged administrative services for a room,” Love said.
Based on Baltimore City’s 2015 Point-in-Time Count and Housing Inventory Count Results,
the data found concluded the following:
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5. - Table courtesy of Mayor's Office of Human Services – Homeless Services Program
By 2018, Baltimore seeks to create and maintain a supply of housing sufficient to re-house
homeless individuals and families, according to the city’s Consolidated Annual Performance
and Evaluation Report.
Although this is a step toward progress, more work needs to be done and more resources
readily available, Gottbrehet said.
"Everyone's always talking about the middle class. I don't see anyone talking about poor
people. They talk about job creation but they don't say poor folks. This is a very poor city,” he
said.
“The results are in ya'll. A quarter of the city lives below the poverty line."
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6. Final Notes and Social Media Coverage
To find the basic overarching data for this project, I went to the U.S. Census website
and clicked the “quick facts” tab. While there I navigated through the options and did a
comparison between Baltimore and Maryland. What struck my attention was the high
number of persons in poverty in Baltimore in comparison to Maryland. This sparked my
curiosity to look into an issue so local to where I live.
For social media, I would use keywords in my posts such as “Baltimore” “homeless”
and “Maryland.” I would also use engaging photographs in order to attract the public to the
article. An infographic could work as well. I could use the statistics approach and simply
state the significant number found in the data provided by the census or I could take a
snippet of a quotation from one of my sources. Essentially, I could highlight a prominent or
meaningful quotation in order to draw in an audience.
Facebook Example:
Twitter Example:
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7. Vimeo Example:
Video Caption: “In Baltimore, the number of individuals living in poverty is significantly
higher than homeless individuals living in the state of Maryland. The U.S. Census Bureau
reports Baltimore City’s ‘persons in poverty’ is 23.8 percent compared to 10.1 percent in the
state of Maryland.”
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