October 8, evening

BaltimoreCrime Temp Edition
Lotsa violence,... does anybody really care ?

A man was shot on the 3600 block, Kenyon Ave. in Northeast Baltimore last night.

A quadruple shooting took place on the 1700 block, West Pratt Street in Southwest Baltimore. All were young males. The fourth man was apparently found nearby on West Lombard. I believe it occurred Saturday. They were taken to shock trauma and are in critical condition.

Two men and a woman were shot on the 4300 block, Reisterstown Road this evening in Northwest Baltimore around 10:00 p.m. None of the injuries was fatal, but one of the victims was sent to shock trauma, the others to Sinai Hospital.

A body was found on Winans Way near Leakin Park.

Also, a man was shot early Sunday morning on the 2800 block, Eastshire in South Baltimore and is in critical condition at shock trauma.

No official word yet on the body at West 26th Street and Miles Ave.

Stephon Nicholson, age 19, was named as the inmate stabbed to death at Central Detention. The other inmate, Kevon Gantt, who was found stabbed in the same cell was released from the hospital.

The Baltimore Afro opposes DC's Mayor-apparent on rolling back curfews.

Affordable Housing Proposal
Now, on the subject of Baltimores B & A, the City Council's affordable housing plan is as misguided as it is misspecified. The proposal would require that 10% of all new rental housing be set aside for tenants at the $42,000 income level and another 10% at the $86,000 level. The effect is to drive yet another wedge between have and have-not neighborhoods in Baltimore at about those income levels. It basically encourages the productive in Baltimore B to cross the river to the other side, enhancing the already high segregation in this very polarized town and ensuring that kids in Baltimore B never see any worthwhile role models, because functional households all leave if they can.

An economically better proposal would be for a set of affordable housing slots to be established, distributed uniformly across the City, in Baltimores B and A both. The subsidy necessary to accomplish it would vary across geography, but provide equal access and equal burden. A necessary prerequisite to relocating deserving Baltimore B families into Baltimore A... or B, for that matter, would be a tight set of behavioral restrictions. No entitlements. Critics of the existing proposal say it doesn't do enough for the truly desperate, but...

Guess what? The whole point of gentrification is to remove behaviorally defective neighbors by pricing them out. (which has its own detractors on ethical grounds) If you pay them to stay, then the higher cost of living that goes with the gentrification accomplishes... nothing. So the investment vanishes down the toilet. Without behavioral restrictions, affordable housing is just another good way for Baltimore City Council to raise your taxes and hand your money to people who voted for them. This is how Baltimore always kills an improved property market, every time.

Advocates at Healthcare for the Homeless argue that affordable housing needs to reach minimum wage workers. Guess what? Minimum wage works out to about $12,300 a year. It's the median household income in my neighborhood. It's not enough to take care of your responsibilities, among which are childcare, education, and adequate nutrition. It's why we have behaviorally impaired young males running around shooting everything that moves. We should not encourage minimum wage earners to live in Baltimore City. To live with decency simply requires more than they've got to offer. They need to go misbehave somewhere else.