Black families in Baltimore have suffered through the impact of housing policy that was actively meant to dismantle their family structure. Redlining, racially restrictive covenants, urban renewal and highways through previously strong Black neighborhoods did not simply take families’ homes. These policies displaced entire communities, destroyed wealth through the loss of family legacies and left behind the barren wasteland of vacant lots ripe for trouble today.

These vacant lots are not just blank spaces on our maps. They are visible manifestations of intention to harm. They symbolize the broken promise of a city and a country that profited from Black displacement, but they also hold a promise to be our greatest opportunity for reparative justice.

Baltimore can be an example of a city that shows housing policy can be a form of restorative justice.

Taking vacant land and filling it with affordable family housing, community gardens and cooperative homeownership models would be much more than just filling in vacant lots. It would be restoring Black neighborhoods by restoring the social fabric that was strong and has since been disrupted.

This must happen in conjunction with down payment assistance, anti-displacement policies and resources invested in neighborhood infrastructure. Stability must be restored, wealth must be developed, and Black families must be given the opportunity they have long been denied.

We tend to speak about public safety, education and economic growth as if these are independent ideas devoid of the housing policy, but they are not. Family stability is the foundation of a stable city. For Baltimore to make reparations for the legacy of redlining, it must utilize housing policy that is intentional about families.

Housing policy destroyed the Black family, and Baltimore is in the position and has the obligation to restore it through housing policy.

Antoine Lovell is an assistant professor in the Morgan State University School of Social Work.

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