Skip to Content List

  • Skip to primary content
  • Skip to footer content

Site Navigation Lists

  • Fellowship Application
  • Grantmaking Process
  • Contact Us
  • Donate
  • About
    • Mission and Vision
    • Staff
    • Board
    • Leadership Council
    • Impact Reports
    • Impact Photo Series
  • Programs and Impact
    • Our Programs and Impact
    • Education and Youth Development
    • Criminal and Juvenile Justice
    • Addiction and Health Equity
    • Community Fellowships
  • Grantees and Fellows
    • Grantee Database
    • Grantmaking Process
    • Community Fellows
    • How to Apply
  • News and Reports
    • Baltimore Justice Report
    • Newsletters
    • Reports
    • Impact Reports
    • Blueprint for Baltimore
    • OSI in the News
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
    • 20th Anniversary Speaker Series
    • Talking About Race Series
    • Talking About Addiction Series
  • Privacy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Community Guidelines
  • Terms & Conditions
Open Society Institute – Baltimore

Open Society Institute – Baltimore

Open Society Institute (OSI) – Baltimore : Audacious Thinking For Lasting Change

  • Fellowship Application
  • Grantmaking Process
  • Contact Us
  • Donate
  • EN
    • EN
    • ES
  • About
    • Mission and Vision
    • Staff
    • Board
    • Leadership Council
    • Impact Reports
    • Impact Photo Series
  • Programs and Impact
    • Our Programs and Impact
    • Education and Youth Development
    • Criminal and Juvenile Justice
    • Addiction and Health Equity
    • Community Fellowships
  • Grantees and Fellows
    • Grantee Database
    • Grantmaking Process
    • Community Fellows
    • How to Apply
  • News and Reports
    • Baltimore Justice Report
    • Newsletters
    • Reports
    • Impact Reports
    • Blueprint for Baltimore
    • OSI in the News
  • Events
    • Upcoming Events
    • Past Events
    • 20th Anniversary Speaker Series
    • Talking About Race Series
    • Talking About Addiction Series
Revitalizing Oldtown

Featured in
Economic Development

Next Article
Rate Your Ride

Economic Development

Revitalizing Oldtown

Content Social Share Links

  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter

If the Oldtown community of East Baltimore is to be revitalized without the gentrification created in other Baltimore neighborhoods, a new form of economic development must be undertaken. Systemic barriers that exclude entire groups must be dealt with realistically. Change4Real, a coalition led by Sojourner-Douglass College consisting of local residents and core community institutions, believes that working collaboratively and with the proper resources, even people perceived as poor can successfully plan their own development. Therefore, Coalition members intend to work with, not for, the residents to help them acquire the necessary resources.

The barriers that must be dealt with realistically include entrenched poverty, civic and economic disinvestment, resident disengagement, lack of education, mis-education, low job skills, limited experience, low wages, conservative hiring practices, no health or other benefits, lack of transportation, inadequate child care, uncoordinated support networks, and substance abuse, among others. The Coalition intends to help residents address these barriers through jointly creating socially-responsive interventions grounded within the core institutions of Oldtown to support the community’s vision for personal and family growth and community-based economic development.

Additionally, they intend to produce hundreds of new employment opportunities and incubate dozens of new businesses capable of engaging the many residents of Oldtown necessary to effect this social and economic transformation through the introduction of economic engines customized to resident needs, e.g. business incubation/financial services; employee-owned cooperatives; weatherization/energy efficiency; allied health/biotechnology; hotel/hospitality/tourism; and skills apprenticeships.

A community that sustains economic well-being for all its residents will reap many benefits. If families are economically secure and children see parents, particularly fathers, engaged in making a living, parents can have higher expectations for their children and the benefits of learning will become an easier sell. Whenever people have livable wage jobs and can build wealth through cooperatively owned businesses, homeownership, and developing other assets, their communities will become places of choice, capital will circulate inside the community, and the hopes and dreams of the residents can be fully realized.

For more information, click here.

Related Content

It’s about opportunity!

Too many people in Baltimore are systematically denied the basic opportunities for healthy and productive development. Too ma…

Read More

Post navigation

Previous Article Previous Maryland can do more to responsibly reduce the prison population
Next Article Next Article Enterprising Green3
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Youtube

Subscribe to our mailing list

OSI Logo

Open Society Institute-Baltimore
Bold Thinking, Strategic Action, Justice for All.

Quick donate

© 2023 Open Society Institute-Baltimore
  • Privacy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Community Guidelines
  • Terms & Conditions
Skip to top of page