Today on Midday, a few different takes on the subject of housing.
A little later, WYPR’s Aaron Henkin, the host of WYPR's new podcast, The Maryland Curiosity Bureau, will join us to talk about his reporting on the Baltimore "dollar house" program. Then, our theater critic, J Wynn Rousuck, will review a production of Rent, the Tony Award- and Pulitzer prize-winning musical that opened on Broadway 25 years ago.
But we begin with Nneka N’namdi, an activist who is working to eliminate blighted housing in our city. The Dollar Homesteading program in the 1970s was seen as a big step forward. The Vacants to Value initiative in the administration of Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake made some progress, but the number of vacant properties, about 16,000, hasn’t changed significantly over the last decade.
Nneka N’namdi describes herself as a “technoartivist,” who is applying her tech and creative skills to the cause of restoring and reclaiming neighborhoods that have been ravaged by blight. She is the founder of the non-profit organization, Fight Blight BMore.
Nneka N'namdi joins us on Zoom.