About Baltimore
Baltimore, Maryland, is a historic port city known for its maritime and industrial heritage, vibrant arts scene, and neighborhoods rich in cultural identity. Today, the city maintains a diverse economy centered on health care, education, finance, and logistics. It is home to several Fortune 1,000 companies such as Constellation Energy, Under Armour, and T. Rowe Price.
The city’s racial composition is roughly 61% Black or African American, 30% White, 5% Hispanic or Latino, and 2% Asian. Baltimore has a median age of around 36 years, reflecting a relatively young, working-age population. This is due, in part, to the presence of eight colleges and universities within the city, including Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB), Morgan State University, and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
Community Context
Strengths
Baltimore has a rich cultural heritage, strong anchor institutions, and a deeply rooted sense of community. The city is home to world-class educational, financial, and medical centers including Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland, which drive innovation, research, and job creation. Its historic neighborhoods, arts and music scenes, and distinctive architecture contribute to a strong local identity and civic pride. Baltimore also has a vibrant nonprofit and grassroots organizing sector focused on equity, youth leadership, and neighborhood revitalization. Its location along the I-95 corridor provides strategic access to major markets, ports, and federal agencies.
Baltimore has experienced significant crime reduction throughout 2025, with historic, multi-year decreases in homicides and nonfatal shootings. These have been driven by the city’s comprehensive violence prevention strategy, which include community partnerships and expanded violence reduction efforts. As of early September 2025, homicides were down approximately 29.5% and nonfatal shootings by 21% compared to the same period in 2024
Barriers
Baltimore faces persistent barriers rooted in racial and economic segregation, disinvestment, and unequal access to opportunity. It was the site of the nation’s first residential segregation ordinance in 1910 and served as a testing ground for future policies. This early segregation paved the way for the systematic denial of mortgages and investment known as redlining, which solidified racially divided neighborhoods. This, and other systemic inequities, left deep and lasting divides between predominantly Black urban neighborhoods and more affluent, largely white areas. The city has historically struggled with high poverty rates, violent crime, and limited pathways to economic mobility, particularly for young residents. Aging infrastructure, unreliable public transportation, and fragmented governance further hinder equitable development.
These, in turn, all contribute to disparities in housing, education, and health outcomes that are still visible today. The city consistently ranks near the bottom among large U.S. cities for economic mobility, which results in many low-income residents stuck in a cycle of intergenerational poverty.
Challenges & Questions
How can solutions be more equitable?
How can Baltimore overcome the compounded effects of transportation gaps, limited community spaces, and digital divides that isolate residents from one another and from opportunity? What strategies can equitably address geographic segregation and ensure that physical and technological infrastructure fosters inclusion rather than division?
Fear and distrust affect connection
How can communities rebuild trust and bridge divides in the face of fear, misinformation, and declining participation in traditional social institutions such as churches? What approaches can effectively support residents in overcoming social withdrawal and rebuilding confidence to connect and collaborate?
Can we reimagine how resources are designed and communicated?
A profound disconnection persists between available resources and community awareness and use. How could resource design be reimagined to center the lived experiences and needs of diverse users rather than “average” assumptions?
“Competition” and power affect collaboration
Local organizations are not able to move beyond competition and power imbalances to build authentic, trust-based partnerships. What models of collaboration or shared governance could align values, data, and goals across sectors?
Does messaging affect accessibility?
City agencies and service providers need to better align their perceptions of accessibility with community realities. What communication frameworks could replace jargon-heavy, top-down messaging with inclusive, participatory dialogue
Trauma takes an enormous toll
There is often a pervasive sense of hopelessness and trauma that undermines engagement and initiative. What trauma-informed or healing-centered strategies could restore agency and hope among residents facing chronic disinvestment?
Promising Initiatives
The Village and TouchPoint
The Village at Mondawmin is a community revitalization project that transformed a former Target store at Mondawmin Mall into a 127,000 square foot community hub. After Target closed in 2018 and the space remained vacant for over four years, Whiting-Turner CEO Tim Regan purchased the property with the goal of creating resources to help revitalize the Mondawmin neighborhood in West Baltimore. Regan worked with the Greater Mondawmin Coordinating Council to determine how the space would be used, envisioning it as a platform where community members could launch businesses, organizations, and programs. The Village’s mission is to nurture collaborations across Baltimore by developing personal connections and empowering communities, housing diverse tenants that provide services ranging from medical care to employment training. TouchPoint, which is located at The Village, focuses on bringing together people from different neighborhoods to lift each other up and break social isolation. They are partnered with three high-performing non-profits: Thread, Baltimore Corps and Center for Urban Families. The hope is that TouchPoint will be replicated in other Baltimore communities.
Thread
For more than 20 years, Thread has been committed to weaving a new social fabric in Baltimore by leveraging the power of relationships to support academically underperforming students through graduation and beyond. Thread enrolls the lowest-performing ninth-grade students at the lowest-performing schools who face an abundance of challenges in and out of the classroom, connects them with a diverse volunteer network, and equips them with the tools and resources needed to complete high school, pursue a post-high school pathway, achieve self-efficacy and experience economic mobility. Thread’s comprehensive data reveals the precise mechanism by which social connectedness can lead to academic achievement. Historically, high school freshmen with GPAs below 1.0 graduate at a rate of 6% in Baltimore. Despite having an average incoming GPA of 0.69, Thread’s students have an overall graduation rate of 65%. The Thread Community Model is designed to radically reconfigure the social support structure of our young people, volunteers, and collaborators, with the intention of creating a deeply connected community where everyone thrives.
Baltimore Unity Hall
Baltimore Unity Hall is a vibrant third place in West Baltimore designed to foster collaboration, creativity, and community leadership. Once a vacant building in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood, it was transformed through a partnership among local residents, nonprofit organizations, and city leaders into a multi-use community hub that supports arts, organizing, and workforce development. The redevelopment was led by Community Builders, Inc., with major funding from the State of Maryland, the City of Baltimore, and the France-Merrick Foundation, alongside private philanthropic partners. Today, Unity Hall houses organizations such as Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, Black Arts District, and No Boundaries Coalition, providing shared office space, studios, and meeting areas for groups driving social and economic change. More than just a workspace, Unity Hall operates as a civic commons – an inclusive environment where artists, activists, and residents come together to co-create solutions and strengthen collective impact across Baltimore’s communities.
Urban Oasis
Urban Oasis began in 2015 as a concerted effort by residents of the Panway community to address issues of blight, drug dealing, dumping and depravity that had affected both the physical environment as well as the social and emotional culture of the neighborhood. The group successfully entered into a lease agreement with the City of Baltimore to gate the four entrances to their alley (one of the largest successful undertakings of the Department of Transportation’s Alley Gating and Greening Office). Today, the garden and a nearby lot serve as a social and cultural hub for movies, storytime, an annual Harvest Festival and Community Table Thanksgiving Dinner, art exhibits, fitness classes, and concerts, including one in partnership with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The Oasis Teens Environmental dedicate 5 hours each week to caring for the community, picking up trash, mowing lawns, and tending to community gardens. A recent $200,000 grant from the Baltimore Regional Neighborhood Initiative will fund a Cafe at The Urban Oasis. The Cafe will offer healthy food, likely using locally grown produce from community gardens, and is expected to be part of a broader infrastructure of green space.
Reframe Baltimore
Reframing Vacant Housing: From Reaction to Prevention is a Baltimore City initiative under Mayor Brandon Scott that reimagines how the city addresses its more than 15,000 vacant properties. Rather than responding to vacancy with demolition alone, the plan takes a proactive, prevention-based approach focused on stabilizing blocks, supporting existing homeowners, and reinvesting in historically disinvested neighborhoods. The initiative incorporates community voice through engagement with neighborhood associations, resident-led development groups, and local nonprofits that help shape priorities for reinvestment and reuse. It incorporates the role of third places such as community centers, parks, and shared gathering spaces by emphasizing the revitalization of these physical and social anchors as part of neighborhood renewal. By linking housing stabilization with the creation of vibrant, inclusive public spaces, the initiative aims to rebuild not only Baltimore’s housing stock but also its sense of community and belonging.
Baltimore Food Policy Initiative
The Baltimore Food Policy Initiative (BFPI) is a citywide collaboration led by the Department of Planning, the Health Department, the Office of Sustainability, and the Baltimore Development Corporation. Its mission is to build an equitable and resilient urban food system that addresses health, economic, and environmental disparities in food access. BFPI is essential because many Baltimore neighborhoods lack nearby grocery stores, affordable healthy food, and reliable transportation, deepening inequities tied to race, income, and place. To address these challenges, BFPI focuses on resident-driven planning, expanding healthy food retail, supporting urban agriculture and local food production, improving transportation access, and aligning land-use and economic policies to strengthen neighborhood food systems and community well-being. Many of BFPI’s programs intentionally use third spaces such as schools, recreation centers, churches, libraries, and community hubs as local food access points. Baltimore’s Virtual Supermarket Program allows residents to order groceries online and pick them up at community libraries, and the Baltimore Food Rescue network redistributes surplus food through neighborhood organizations and faith-based centers. These shared spaces not only bring healthy food closer to residents but also serve as gathering points that strengthen social connection and neighborhood cohesion.
Gatherings
Our team worked closely with our Local Advisor, Sarah Hemminger, the co-founder and CEO of Thread (see Promising Initiatives for more information on this organization). Thread has operated in Baltimore for more than 20 years and has formed deep partnerships with other organizations, government leaders, and residents.
As a thought leader and practitioner in bridging social divides and influencing nationwide programming, Thread is leading the Baltimore A-Z initiative. This work aims to create vibrant, thriving communities where strong relationships and social connections drive economic prosperity and more just education and health outcomes for young people and their families. This cohort has been wrestling with answers to the following questions:
- If “A” is economic connectedness and “Z” is economic mobility, what are the milestones in between?
- How does one know if they are on the right track from “A” to Z”?
- How does a community create activities and offer resources that drive towards “Z” AND help ease the transitions from “A to B”, “B to C”, etc?
To support its A-Z work, Thread staff convened both government officials and community leaders to understand the current landscape and explore what a commitment to social connectedness could mean for Baltimore as a vehicle for economic growth. The A-Z conversations brought together practitioners with significant frontline experience, including leading philanthropists, civic leaders, state and local elected officials, university professors, and business owners. Thread staff included senior resource managers, research directors, and community engagement specialists with deep community experience.
Thread will continue to convene groups to bring awareness to action that can build social capital and economic mobility through collective efforts. Several events are planned for the end of 2025 and early 2026 that will begin to draw in wider audiences to the A-Z initiative. The arc of events aims to educate a wider swath of constituents about the roadmap and to explore how to apply and implement the findings. These engaging and robust conversations will allow attendees to learn more about what the research and data analysis within the field of economic connectedness are finding, how that work looks on the ground through case study presentations, and what that has meant for a city like Baltimore.
Both government and community stakeholders in Baltimore recognized social connectedness as a fundamental driver of economic mobility and emphasized the importance of physical spaces that foster organic connection and belonging.
Findings
Cultural and visionary change is needed.
Stakeholders call for a return to a “it takes a village” mentality, embedding connection into daily life, civic processes, and all city policies. Cultural priorities include normalizing discussion of trauma and childhood challenges, centering Black cultural experiences, and actively dismantling white supremacy norms to create more inclusive, resilient communities. Third spaces are emphasized as the physical and social backbone of this cultural transformation, providing places where neighbors, youth, and diverse community members can meaningfully interact.
Communities can benefit from strong government commitment and strategic integration.
Both government and community stakeholders in Baltimore recognize social connectedness as a fundamental driver of economic mobility. Officials explicitly link social capital to housing, education, transportation, and workforce development and emphasized that exposure to diverse, high-opportunity connections directly impacts upward mobility. Government-led programs like Baltimore City Infrastructure Academy and Maryland Service Year integrate workforce development, certification, and professional experience within community-accessible third spaces, enabling residents to gain skills while building meaningful social networks.
Community voice leads to equitable programs.
Participants felt that true empowerment and co-creation are prioritized over box-checking in Baltimore. Citywide standards for community engagement are emphasized with participatory budgeting, resident-led housing design, and accessible town halls, often held in neutral third spaces like elementary schools, serving as examples of meaningful inclusion. Programs like the Baltimore Young Families Success Fund (BYFSF) guaranteed income pilot project and Direct File tax services reflect efforts to remove barriers and directly engage residents in economic and civic processes.
Cross-sector partnerships lead to innovation.
Baltimore is successful in leveraging collaboration between nonprofits, universities, private sector, and city agencies to maximize social and economic outcomes. Examples include TouchPoint, Thread, Whiting-Turner, and BGE partnerships. Recognized challenges – such as siloed systems, resource competition, and jargon – are being addressed through conveners, data-sharing agreements, and community-centered project design, often anchored in third spaces that serve as inclusive hubs for engagement and co-learning.
Residents benefit from investment in social infrastructure.
Government and community stakeholders emphasized the importance of physical spaces that foster organic connection and belonging. Successful models include The Village at Mondawmin, Baltimore Unity Hall, and Urban Oasis. These third spaces serve as hubs for mentorship, recreation, civic engagement, and skill-building. One-on-one mentoring and peer-to-peer programs within these spaces are consistently highlighted as the most impactful intervention, particularly for youth and marginalized residents. Programs like Bmore This Summer leverage third places to provide structured opportunities for engagement, learning, and social connection outside school hours.
Policy alignment can promote systemic integration.
Housing is viewed as a foundational lever (“the funnel”) influencing all other social and economic outcomes. Participants believe Baltimore needs more policies that address structural racism, expand broadband, improve walkability, increase affordable housing and homeownership, and integrate human-centered training and education. Policy priorities should also extend to healthcare, guaranteed income, youth development, justice reforms, and neighborhood diversification to foster intergenerational and cross-cultural connection. Third spaces are seen as key infrastructure for enabling these policy outcomes by providing accessible venues for programming, learning, and civic participation.
Innovative third places can become hubs for empowerment.
Participants offered community-led innovations as examples of how spaces can lead impact. One model, Troy’s Barbershop and More Than a Shop, creates community hubs in traditional barbershops and salons, leveraging trust and accessibility, so they become central locations for community services and support. It also partners with other organizations to offer services like expungement support, free Wi-Fi, and connections to libraries and food assistance. The initiative aims to empower barbers and stylists to become community leaders by equipping them with the training and resources to provide these services.
