“Hope Village” provides working displaced (homeless) families a chance to own a truly low-cost home of their own in which to raise their children, build equity, and stabilize communities so the City and all its people can thrive.
Hope Village’s vision is to correct detrimental life experiences for those who work but still find themselves experiencing homelessness. Through Hope Village, they are providing the beginning of a solid solution to this problem. When people have jobs and work they should be able to afford a mortgage to purchase a decent house in which to live and, if they are parents, to bring up their children in a healthy and happy home. Hope Village brings down the cost of a house within reach of even very low-income wage earners for the first time.
An experiment in Artists Housing
The Compound is an artist-run nonprofit in Baltimore City that supports individual and collective production within experimental cultural, social, and urban space. Prioritizing affordability and sustainability, they provide spaces to Baltimore’s artists and artisans. The complex of units that make up the Compound includes local small businesses, individual artist studios, event spaces, and experimental living spaces for artist-residents of the Compound.
In 2010, Baltimore artists Nicholas Wisniewski and Marlon Ziello purchased the 20,000 square-foot former S.W. Betz forklift factory in the East Baltimore Midway neighborhood. The complex had been vacant for more than six years. In collaboration with other local artists and members of the local community—without outside investment and largely through sweat equity—the once-vacant factory was transformed into a multi-purpose community hub. Today, the Compound provides affordable housing to working artists, cost-effective work/studio space to artisans and community-based organizations, and employment and educational opportunities to Midway residents and youth. For 10 years, the Compound has been a site of robust community building in the Midway neighborhood including public educational programming and cultural events.
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