What did you think when I told you I’d be spending the summer doing action research in Baltimore? Most people immediately asked which part of the city I stayed in, and made some kind of comment about how dangerous they’ve heard it is there. Most people outside of the area don’t think about Baltimore very much at all, and if they do, it’s only in reference to something they’ve heard on the news, or The Wire.
Hearing Baltimore as just a sound byte in the news, or just a point to be made in a presidential debate, or a trending topic on my Facebook feed was...very strange while I was living there. Even though I’d only been there for around a month and a half at the time those nasty tweets made the headlines, it was still odd to hear all the buzz about the city I was living in. When I first read the tweets, I immediately felt outraged at what felt like a wicked, sweeping, and unfounded dismissal of all the people I met there--from social entrepreneurs to grandmothers attending community association meetings--who live and work in the communities they call home. Then I felt defensive because Baltimore is much like any other U.S. city in many ways. Its problems are complex, the system works for the rich and powerful but not for just about everyone else, and there’s a whole lot of potential to be found in places and people that you might least expect it.
Everyone I interacted with was nothing but welcoming and kind, from the woman at the Artscape festival who asked if she could give me a hug when she saw my Black Lives Matter t-shirt, to the police officer at Eddie’s grocery store who recognized me the second time I shopped there and asked how I was liking the city. About two weeks in, I had an unexpectedly pleasant encounter with a young homeless woman who was posted up at a busy street corner, entreating the steady flow of pedestrians that passed her by. I offered to get her something to eat or drink; she accepted with many thanks, asked how my day was going, asked my astrological sign, and ended up telling me a story about her daughter before we parted ways. It’s difficult to know how to process these experiences exactly, but I hope they give a glimpse of the everyday moments that humanized and grounded my experience of living in a big city full of individual people who, every day, are holding their own world of experiences with them like I am mine.
Just looking at the symptoms (poverty, economic disparity, crime...) doesn’t give any understanding of the root problems; it leaves out the most important part of the picture. Baltimore’s challenges are inextricably tied to its history of segregation--some of the earliest and strictest laws in the country--and deliberate disinvestment of non-white neighborhoods. Neighborhoods that are less than half black receive four times the investment that neighborhoods that are 85% or more black receive.
This was evident for me at the Fayette Street Outreach meeting, when residents of a historically black community gather to see how they can improve their neighborhood. It was difficult for them to name existing neighborhood “assets,” because the ones they lack play such a big role in their daily lives. Jay and Nicholas emphasized the importance of starting with what they do have, because from there comes the potential to find opportunity. They swapped many stories, and described the daily journey of three different “personas” that are common in the area: a teenager who can’t get a job or support his newborn child because he’s addicted to drugs; a middle-aged single woman who has a stressful commute and a toxic household to return to; and an elderly person whose severe loneliness and anger towards “insolent,” jobless youth define their daily struggles. The point of the exercise was to empathize with each of the personas, and eventually come up with potential solutions for their daily struggles. I described that day in an earlier blog post already, but it’s really stuck with me. I did a lot of listening that day. I was the only white person in the room, and that may have been a first for me -- I can’t remember, and that’s part of my privilege to have never been in the minority. When I was walking around the highly gentrified Inner Harbor and Fells Point, with their high-end shopping outlets, restaurants, famous aquarium, and other tourist attractions, I couldn’t help thinking that it feels like it was placed here out of nowhere...and it essentially was, by and for the rich under the guise of creating jobs (For who? Not the people who need it most.), and attracting more people to live and stay in Baltimore (300,000 residents have left Baltimore since 1960). Gentrification has continued to creep into historic corners of the city, displacing residents by pricing them out of their homes instead of improving the whole neighborhood so that those already in it can succeed economically. Government-subsidized “solutions” over the years have not done anything to help these “orphan” neighborhoods that are the Last Mile in Baltimore for everything from fresh food to broadband Internet service. One of the nonprofits I thought was working on housing equity in the most disinvested neighborhoods in the city is actually working to support communities that already have relatively stable housing. It got me thinking, who is working to support these orphan neighborhoods? (An answer: Parity Homes, one of the social enterprises that just began IW’s first 6-month mentorship program.) I was shocked to hear from one of the entrepreneurs, “You know, we can’t argue that what Trump said about Baltimore was right, he called us out.” After quickly clarifying that the manner in which it was said was still completely wrong, she said that everyone should be taking it as a challenge to do better. Because she’s seen a whole lot of complaining going on, and efforts that suck money from the government without anything ever making it to the streets. I’m sharing all of this not to add to the barrage of writing about Baltimore’s problems, but to give context as to why Innovation Works is doing things differently, and working to break the vicious cycle that has left so many people jaded. As we were driving around the city to meet with the entrepreneurs who went through the Boost program, Jay would often give me a run-down of the type of transformation, gentrification, or neglect that each neighborhood has gone through (and exactly how people feel about it). The complex context of the city’s history, both far in the past and recent, is essential to the way in which IW has to approach solutions. And one of the biggest takeaways I got from my experience was realizing just how little-known social entrepreneurship is as a solution, but at the same time, how much potential it has when applied with individual care. It’s understandable, for example, why Farmer Chippy was so skeptical of the idea of pitching his Urban Farm to investors when he’s seen that source of money as letting down his people for decades. Several nonprofits were skeptical of an earned income model or suspicious of asking for investor money, even though the goal is to expand your social impact with that funding. In practice, social entrepreneurship can take many different forms, and using it to, say, reduce the cost of operations is more desirable than implementing a scaling strategy that doesn’t feel true to your mission. The entrepreneur, in the end, knows the most about their business, the beneficiaries they’re serving, and the context in which they’re operating, and any and all support must essentially stem from that understanding. IW is seeking out the people who can do the most good in the right way, people who are working on some of the most important issues in the city like food security, digital equity, public health, youth engagement, and housing and infrastructure. Social entrepreneurship in Baltimore has to be approached from the mindset of “what can I do to economically empower the communities that nobody else cares about?” And the form that that takes depends on each organization and each approach. It takes the personal touch of someone who’s been living in the city for years and years to know what strategy already has a saturated market, where help is needed the most, and what funding is available for whom. That’s why we visited all 28 of the organizations afterwards, at their place of operations, to personally check in with how they’re doing, give strategic advice, and see how IW can provide support. I learned an incredible amount from each meeting, and each drive to get there. On the way to Gallagher Services for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities, Jay explained as we were crossing the official border of the city that there are plenty of commuters who use public infrastructure (such as roads, the light rail, Metro, and MARC) to benefit from all that Baltimore has to offer economically and culturally, while leaving the city and its residents to struggle financially. But as usual, he put a positive spin on it--if they’re coming here to spend their money anyway, why not find ways to ensure that it’s going to local businesses and social enterprises that keep that money in the city and benefit local economies?
As our follow-up meetings continued, I realized that even within the same overarching organization, it was a very different experience visiting the Esperanza Center, a Catholic Charities program providing assistance to immigrants, than it was driving to the Catholic Charities headquarters of all 80 programs and sitting at a long conference table which included the VPs and Executive Director. Catholic Charities programs receive a lot of funding from foundations each year; so how can IW help that funding go even further by encouraging the use of social entrepreneurship strategies? In order to create lasting change in Baltimore, challenging and questioning the status quo of operations is essential, while honoring the mission and specific context of each organization. It’s a work in progress, but the amount of knowledge that each person at IW holds about communities and connections within Baltimore is both astonishing and extremely hopeful, and the work that all 28 organizations is already doing is inspiring.
Alone? Not exactly...
My time in the field was the most amount of personal freedom I’ve had in my entire life up until this point. My food, lodging, and daily living expenses were covered by Miller Center donors, I was traveling alone, living alone, and outside of work, my evenings and weekends were free to spend them as I wished. I got to spend a good amount of time making new memories...with myself! I’m pretty sure nearly all of the best memories I have are with other people; it’s difficult to think of a vivid memory where I was by myself, and not sharing it with my friends or family.
But I came to appreciate spending time with myself, even though I didn’t fully embrace it at first. I enjoyed just taking time to walk, observe, experience, and notice everything around me. There was a lot of quiet time to myself in silence, which was often difficult in a different way than I’ve experienced before. I noticed when I was rushing, worrying, not jumping on every curiosity I have just because I’m not with someone else who might enjoy it with me. Something was always propelling me forward, and I think it was that I’m so used to filling every busy moment of my day. I started to feel the discomfort of aloneness, of not quite being able to settle in. Finding motivation and light was difficult when I was by myself for long stretches of time, but I found solace in music and art; a particularly proud moment was when I actually completed a drawing that I started, for the first time in a long time. I’ve never lived entirely alone before, and one of my goals is to grow 100% comfortable with just my own company.
From my first solo travel experience, and first action research fellowship, I learned that you truly get out what you put in, not just at work, but for yourself. The amount of personal growth I experienced during my time in Baltimore was unexpected but very much welcome. There may have been times where I was sad not to have a research partner, but I was incredibly grateful and energized by so many other aspects of my placement.
Innovation Works is an incredible organization to be working for, and their partnership with Miller Center is opening up groundbreaking potential for social entrepreneurship in U.S. cities. I got the chance to experience what the fast-paced environment of a start-up is like, and learning about strategies for social impact specifically in the context of Baltimore was the most meaningful and exciting part for me. I was able to synthesize the skills I’ve gained from my education in a real-world environment, and the experience was so fulfilling that it got me excited about the post-graduation life (which is rare considering how often I stress about that)! As the "Miller Center Spy," I got to live and breathe Innovation Works and Baltimore city for 8 weeks; and I can’t possibly express how much I learned every single day on the job just from talking to Jay, Sally, Nicholas, Frank, Libby, and all of the inspiring entrepreneurs I met along the way.
Check out Jay's interview with WMAR News!
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