Commentary

Greater Baltimore Committee president and CEO Donald C. Fry discussed inclusionary housing. Inclusionary housing taps the economic gains from rising real estate values to create affordable housing for lower-income families, according to the Inclusionary Housing Database. Legislation has been introduced in the Baltimore City Council to increase more housing units for low-and middle-class residents.

The United States added 431,000 new jobs last month, a sign, we are told, of how healthy the economy is. You could have fooled me. I’m not a numbers cruncher. I’m talking about how the economy feels, which translates pretty directly into how voters vote. And it doesn’t feel healthy, not at all. A big part of the reason is inflation, of course, and the rising prices and hidden little taxes you find on menus, in Ubers and Lyft rides, and just about everywhere else.

Like many places across the country, Maryland residents are navigating a housing crisis. A 2020 report commissioned by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (MDHCD) reported a shortage of 85,000 affordable apartments in Maryland for families and individuals earning less than 30% of median income. Meanwhile, an additional 97,200 families and individuals earning less than 50% of median income are expected to move to the state by 2030, the study also noted, which will require a dramatic increase in affordable housing supply over the next 10 years.

When it comes to violent crime in Baltimore, April has so far proven to be as gloomy as the proceeding three months. Three people were killed and two others injured in multiple city shootings last Sunday alone, keeping the pace of homicides in 2022 ahead of last year. A 38-year-old Johns Hopkins acute care surgeon was shot during a carjacking on his way to work at 7 a.m. Friday morning. Shootings with multiple victims are up and so are robberies. Cars recklessly spinning out “doughnuts” to an audience at busy city intersections has apparently become a thing.

The outrage and tragedy of drunk driving deaths is that they are entirely preventable. For three years, we’ve introduced legislation to strengthen Noah’s Law, named for Montgomery County police officer Noah Leotta, who was killed by a repeat drunk driver in the line of duty. At Mothers Against Drunk Driving, we refer to bills like Noah’s Law as “all-offender” laws. What does that mean? Drunk driving offenders are offered a chance to resume normal life if they do one simple thing: put an ignition interlock on their car. Since our victory in Maryland, 35 other states have followed suit – and some have gone much farther.

Sex traffickers who exploit children should be punished. Their victims should not. Maryland, however, charges child sex trafficking victims with crimes that are a direct result of their own victimization. In fact, sex trafficked minors in Maryland can be charged, detained, and convicted for the same prostitution that their trafficker demanded. Other charges can be brought for truancy and running away, as well as crimes that are common to street survival like trespassing, fourth-degree burglary, and drug possession.

The conventional wisdom is that Vladimir Putin catastrophically miscalculated. He thought Russian-speaking Ukrainians would welcome his troops. They didn’t. He thought he’d swiftly depose Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government. He hasn’t. He thought he’d divide NATO. He’s united it. He thought he had sanction-proofed his economy. He’s wrecked it. He thought the Chinese would help him out. They’re hedging their bets.