Waterkeepers Chesapeake
Guided by the view that judicial remedies due to environmental harms should be the same for everyone, regardless of income, race, or ethnicity, Waterkeepers Chesapeake, in partnership with Chesapeake Legal Alliance and Center for Progressive Reform, plans to research, draft and release a joint report on the legal hurdles to communities and individuals attempting to sue on pollution matters in Maryland. The report will document the challenges in meeting the standing requirements for suits on environmental matters in Maryland state courts despite broad rights intended by federal environmental legislation. The report will provide a series of policy recommendations that the three organizations will elevate with media coverage, outreach to community groups, and education of elected officials in the Maryland General Assembly.
Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service
Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service provides legal assistance, dispute resolution, and connection to services, benefits, and tax credits for low income homeowners facing unaffordable water bills and municipal taxes. Left unpaid, these municipal liens could result in the loss of the home to tax sale foreclosure. Outreach and advocacy on water bill and property tax affordability are ideally approached jointly because for so many residents these two issues are linked. MVLS will conduct outreach to the more than 900 homeowners who were removed from 2021 tax sale due to COVID-19 forbearance by Mayor Scott. And MVLS will leverage community relationships to enroll homeowners and tenants with incomes at or below 200% of the federal poverty line in the Water for All Program (Water Accountability & Equity Act).
Civic Works, Inc.
Civic Works’ Eviction Prevention Outreach program responds to the emerging need of Baltimore’s renters who are facing eviction after COVID-19 pandemic moratorium protections expire and are eligible for eviction prevention funding made available through federal stimulus dollars. Civic Works will deploy AmeriCorp workers for direct outreach to the highest risk households who are scheduled for court-ordered evictions. Civic Works is also currently partnering with the Baltimore City Health Department’s COVAX initiative to provide outreach to under-vaccinated populations. Because there is considerable overlap between communities experiencing low rates of vaccination and communities with residents at risk of eviction, the Eviction Prevention Outreach Initiative will work in coordination with the COVAX outreach activities within targeted zip codes. Trained Civic Works staff workers will assist renters to complete applications for eviction prevention funding to pay past-due rent and prevent evictions.
Baltimore Tree Trust
Baltimore Tree Trust’s Community Forester Corps program offers virtual, classroom, and hand-on training in tree planting and maintenance, urban forestry, and tree mapping and data management. The program creates viable pathways to employment opportunities for people who have been marginalized by lack of education, discrimination, and unavailability of jobs matching their skill sets. By planting and maintaining trees, trainees contribute to Baltimore City’s goal of increasing tree coverage from 26% to 40% by 2037. Expanding the urban tree canopy improves the health of residents and livability of neighborhoods, promotes environmental stewardship, addresses adverse climate change and extreme heat, and advances equity.
Baltimore Corps
Baltimore Corps supports Baltimore City’s social innovation sector by recruiting and deploying mission-driven young professionals to Baltimore City’s public agencies and social sector organizations. As the local Kiva Baltimore operating partner, Baltimore Corps works with entrepreneurs, small businesses, and micro-businesses, with an intentional focus on supporting Black-owned businesses. Baltimore Corps’ Kiva Baltimore program staff assist businesses at every step of the process to apply, fundraise, and repay loans through the technology lending platform. Kiva-Baltimore supports Black-owned small-businesses and micro-enterprises operating in Baltimore City through COVID pandemic-related challenges and beyond. Grant funds will be used to support staff costs to meet expansion needs and increased demand from small and micro-business ongoing advice and consultation and provide 25 microloans through the Kiva-Baltimore platform.