Workforce development, transportation, and housing: how do we do it right? The manufacturing jobs many unskilled workers may have been able to take in the past have disappeared. The region’s public transit system is a disconnected mass of trains, buses, and light rails. The city is dotted with 16,000 vacant homes sucking the life out of some neighborhoods, while other neighborhoods have homes selling for millions of dollars. Progress on this trifecta challenge is slowed by poor coordination among myriad public agencies and private non-profits.
Enter the Opportunity Collaborative. With a $3.5-million-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, the collaborative has brought together the different parties working on these issues and challenged them to come up with a plan. The fruits of their labor, a final report, is to be released this morning. With us to talk about it is Mike Kelly, Executive Director of the Baltimore Metropolitan Council, which houses the Opportunity Collaborative and Bill Cole, head of the quasi-public Baltimore Development Corporation and co-chair of the Opportunity Collaborative.
You can find the final report from the Opportunity Collaborative here.
