Baltimore uses bonds for its glitziest developments. What if they could rehab vacant rowhomes?

Joseph “Joe” Meyerhoff II has a solution to Baltimore’s vacant home crisis that even he knows sounds crazy, but some in the city of Baltimore are examining the idea. There are at least 15,000 vacant homes in Baltimore, a level of blight rarely seen on the East Coast. Yet the city has an affordable housing shortage, so Meyerhoff wanted to know why somebody couldn’t just fix up those homes and sell them. The retired businessman and philanthropist put the question to a nonprofit builder, who told him he spent $200,000 to fix up a vacant Baltimore house that then appraised for only $150,000.