ABOUT HUB WEST BALTIMORE CDC

 

HUB West Baltimore grew out of extended conversations with community organizations like the Fayette Street Outreach (who’s been doing incredible work for 30 years just south of the station), the Baltimore Transit Equity Coalition (formed in the wake of Governor Hogan’s decision to cancel the Red Line), and the HUB’s new partner organization, Edmondson Community Organization. Those conversations, along with meetings with city government leaders in economic development, housing and planning, identified a need for a community development corporation (or CDC) to focus on the immediate area around the station - some of the most disinvested census tracts in the state, yet an area with tremendous strengths and unlimited potential.

The specific needs identified by those city and community leaders for the focus area included:

 

  • A Unified Voice: a loud and media-savvy voice from the community, speaking as one, arguing in favor of equity-aware development - both commercial and residential

  • A Development-Ready Project Partner: a community planning and project partner with fluency in revitalization, affordable housing and transportation that’s ready to work on Day 1 with developers, homeowners and government partners

  • Greater Grant-Getting: a community grant-seeking organization that can successfully go after larger and potentially transformational federal and foundational offerings

  • A Cultural Catalyst: a “Friends of” culture-focused organization that will help grow the numbers of festivals and markets, and facilitate the creation of as much green space and recreational opportunities as possible

 

Moving forward those four items will be the core of the organization’s mission.

As of early 2022, HUB West Baltimore officially became a unit of the newly-revived and revitalized Edmondson Community Organization. Together, the two organizations will work hand-in-hand to bring rapid, equitable, transformational revitalization to the neighborhoods around the West Baltimore MARC Station.



 

Executive Director - Jonathan Sacks

Jonathan was born and raised in West Baltimore (Bolton Hill), and is a fourth generation West Baltimorean - with his father, grandmother and great-grandmother living just eight blocks north of the MARC Station. He has experience with development in Washington, and has had a front row seat for decades there, to witness the torrid pace of revitalization, as well as the true marginalization of groups left out of the benefit equation. He believes things could be done differently in West Baltimore - and that good planning, quality government leadership, a recognition of structural racism’s continued effects on the city today, and a firm commitment to right those wrongs are the keys. His academic background is in regional development and finance. He has degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School.