Commentary

For decades, Baltimore residents have been living next to vacant properties that damage their homes and health and put their homeowners insurance at risk of cancellation. The presence of vacant properties makes neighborhoods less safe and stable. For children in those neighborhoods, living in substandard housing or even walking past rows of vacant properties day after day impacts their learning.

Instead of walking through the doors of a Montgomery County high school, I was a teenager walking through prison gates. I was called a menace to society and told I deserved to die in prison. I spent a decade in solitary confinement. Decades later, I’m now a husband, father and leader in community care initiatives. I stand among many others who, given a chance, have proven capable of leading a productive, fulfilling life.

I applaud Gov. Wes Moore for introducing mental health legislation (Senate Bill 453 and House Bill 576) to establish assisted outpatient treatment in Maryland to help save the lives of our loved ones with SMI. Unfortunately, it is too late to save my beloved son, Ben, who had serious mental illness, and tragically died on Dec. 8, 2023, at the age of 35. On Dec. 4, four days before Ben’s death, he was found unconscious from an anoxic brain injury on a Baltimore street without identification and admitted as a John Doe to the same hospital where he had recently, and voluntarily, received psychiatric treatment for a month. He was discharged on Nov. 27.

The Maryland Homeowner Assistance Fund represented a lifeline for low-income residents at risk of losing their homes. The fund officially spent or allocated all the $185 million it was provided by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development to assist homeowners with mortgages, reverse mortgages, homeowners insurance, water bills, property taxes and home ownership association fee defaults.

Recent legislation proposed by Gov. Wes Moore and leaders of the Maryland General Assembly that directly contradicts the progressive juvenile crime agenda of the Juvenile Services Secretary Vincent Schiraldi highlights the issues that arise when major political appointees are woke, misguided and too soft on crime. After an enormous amount of public pressure, leadership in the Maryland General Assembly and Governor Moore have recently introduced new legislation with the goal of ensuring that children who commit crimes are held accountable for their actions and that they are rehabilitated to an extent to which they can become productive members of society.

Does this mean Wes Moore and John Angelos aren’t besties anymore? Throughout this long soap opera — the Angelos family feud over the stewardship of the Baltimore Orioles, the protracted negotiations for a new team lease at Camden Yards, worries and rumors about the O’s moving to Nashville, the governor’s very public celebration of a 30-year lease that wasn’t, then a 15-year, extendable lease with conditions, and now the surprising sale of the team to a billionaire and his partners — we kept hearing that Gov. Wes Moore and Orioles CEO John Angelos were friends.

It’s only natural that when it came time for the squabbling Angelos family to finally strike a deal to sell the Baltimore Orioles, the first question on the minds of fans would be whether the new owner would have Charm City roots or not. The good news is that David Rubenstein, the private-equity billionaire who will have a controlling interest, is a Baltimore native and even a Baltimore City College man.