As funds surge to West Baltimore, Mondawmin may hold secrets to inclusive growth

On a sweltering day last summer, Maryland and Baltimore officials gathered at Coppin State University pledging change for West Baltimore. The state was directing more than $11 million toward the West North Avenue Development Authority (WNADA), a state entity tasked with revitalizing the corridor from the 600 block near the Jones Falls Expressway to the 3200 block near Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park.

A year later, $9.5 million in grants have been awarded to eight projects that include redeveloping an old lumber yard, rehabbing vacant houses and providing housing and workspace to entrepreneurs. The recipients, many who have worked in West Baltimore, were to receive funds this month as the authority seeks applicants for another round of grants .

Coinciding with development of a community hub at Mondawmin Mall and efforts to reconnect neighborhoods to Druid Hill Park , the infusion of capital adds to a sense of momentum for a historically under-resourced area . But longtime residents are quick to hold up decades of grassroots work that led to this moment, a period that may also offer lessons on how to avoid the displacement economic development can often stoke.

“People only invest when they know that it’s worthwhile,” said Jackie Caldwell, the president of the Whittier-Monroe Neighborhood Association and a resident of the Greater Mondawmin area for more than 60 years. “So they know that this is a neighborhood of growth and inclusion and collaboration, and most of all, doing what we say we’re going to do.”

Listening to residents like Caldwell was a big part of WNADA’s early work. Residents sought their share of changes, such as adding retailers and jobs and making roads safer, but also emphasized preservation, singling out historic spaces like the Arch Social Club on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Foundational to the WNADA’s plans is sustainably growing wealth without displacing residents, a relatively rare feat. But it’s one that the Mondawmin neighborhood — located in the north-central part of the West North Avenue corridor southwest of Druid Hill Park — has accomplished before.

A 2022 Brookings Metro study of more than 3,500 areas of concentrated poverty identified the census tract including all of residential Mondawmin as one of fewer than 200 in the U.S. where the share of people living in poor households significantly decreased between 2000 and 2015 without residents or racial or ethnic groups being pushed out.

More recent data covering 2017 to 2021 shows that Mondawmin, which is more than three-quarters Black like the West North Avenue corridor as a whole, continued that trend of inclusive prosperity. Two other Baltimore neighborhoods that joined Mondawmin in the researchers’ initial group, Better Waverly and Greektown, have since shown signs of displacement.

Mondawmin’s accomplishment belies a simple, single explanation. But residents and representatives say two factors that permeated others and continue to propel the area today are an umbrella community association structure that can both listen closely and speak loudly and lasting partnerships with schools, businesses and other institutional anchors.

“As Mondawmin succeeds, the institutions do better, and then as the institutions do well, the community succeeds,” said Democratic state Sen. Antonio Hayes, whose 40th legislative district includes much of West Baltimore.

Collaboration with entities like Mondawmin Mall and the Maryland Transit Administration, operator of Mondawmin transportation hub, may help explain how the area improved with fewer built-in advantages than other areas the Brookings report’s researchers found to have experienced inclusive growth.

The timespan researchers studied began with a period of intense activity by Greater Mondawmin community groups, starting with a survey. With people and structures aging and blight spreading, residents worked for two years toward a five-year plan that resolved to fix up buildings, spruce up streets and talk up the area they loved.

The master plan released by the Greater Mondawmin Coordinating Council in 2002 noted a “committed core of homeowners determined to preserve and enhance their neighborhoods” as one of the key strengths of the region. Between 2000 and 2002, the GMCC set up its umbrella structure and assisted in the formation of five community associations, which joined three existing ones.

“We often hear people speak of ‘the community’ as if such a reality exists. In our experience, communities have to be created,” the report read.

Daniel Hindman, vice president of the GMCC, views these relationships like gardening.

“You don’t control outcomes in a garden, ever,” he said. “But what you can do is cultivate the little space you have, and trust that good can come out of this.”

Creating opportunity, as opposed to pre-determining outcomes, encapsulates the approach of one of the recipients of the recent West North Avenue Development Authority grants. By next summer, Citywide Youth Development expects to complete an expansion of the E.M.A.G.E. Center economic development hub on Mondawmin’s southern edge, fronting West North Avenue. The nonprofit’s $750,000 grant is to fund the transformation of four abandoned properties into 16,000 square feet for retail, entrepreneurs, a tech incubator and education, Citywide Youth Development executive director Rasheed Aziz said.

“This will be the first true economic development center that focuses on centralized, vertically integrated social enterprises,” Aziz said. “It’s not happening anywhere in Baltimore, let alone West Baltimore.”

Allocated $17 million in state money for the fiscal year that began July 1, the WNADA hopes to next fund projects that benefit Coppin State University, improve access to healthful food or attract retail or entertainment businesses.

“Baltimore used to be … a hub for manufacturing, industrial, retail, commercial development. And I’d say North West Avenue can be that again as long as we do this strategically and methodically and investing in the right people,” WNADA Executive Director Chad Williams said.

In its request for qualifications , the authority encourages applications from organizations that are small or disadvantaged, a nod to making what Williams acknowledged can seem like an intimidating process more inclusive.

“Obviously, there are a lot of well-known large nonprofit organizations in the city, in the region that are doing great work,” Williams said. “However, I think folks that have grown up in these neighborhoods, attended school in these neighborhoods, that live in these neighborhoods, the opportunity to participate in their own revitalization is important.”

Baltimore Sun reporter Maya Lora contributed to this article.