12 December 2018

Vox: Leaving Baltimore behind

It’s called the Baltimore Housing Mobility Program (BRHP). It started in 2002, and has since moved more than 4,000 people out of the city. Some see it as a way to give low-income Baltimore residents new opportunities in neighborhoods that would otherwise be out of reach. [...]

Baltimore gets a lot of attention for its problems. In addition to its crime rate, nearly a quarter of its residents live in poverty. Baltimore and its surrounding suburbs are starkly segregated by race and class — a pattern set in motion by policymakers in the early 20th century that continues to this day.[...]

The vast majority of BRHP participants live in Baltimore, often in public housing, and always in neighborhoods with a great deal of poverty. Nearly all of them are black. They’re moving to “Opportunity Areas,” determined by the program through a mix of census data and other metrics. These areas have a lot more wealth, including job opportunities and resource-rich schools. Residents tend to be white.

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