The kids Teaching for America are coming!

Buz and his darling wife are losing our tenant of 2 years at our lovely house on w. 34th Street in Hampden, hon. She and her daughters have been great and we'll miss having them there, alas, especially the garden and the piano.

So, we put our house on Craigslist and got two wonderful young ladies to look at it. We learned that they are in the Teach for America program, and are moving to Baltimore to teach for two years in inner city schools. However, they chose another Hampden house over ours. We also learned that 200 of them are coming to Baltimore once they finish their student teaching/training this summer at Philadelphia, Houston and other places.

Wow! 200!

We sincerely wish these highly educated, highly motivated young people well.

And since they'll be needing a nice and reasonable, centrally located place to live, we thought we'd put in a shameless plug for our house on 34th Street in Hampden--just down the street from Rocket to Venus (not that any of these teachers ever drink, but...), and the "Miracle on 34th Street" (some, even atheists, can enjoy the lights and good cheer of the season). It is also just a couple of blocks from the main drag, the Avenue, the neighborhood's funky, charming, and quirky business district.

Hampden and Medfield are centrally located so a TFA person can be assured the drive to more than 95% of the city's public schools is not an arduous ordeal. And it is close to TFAs Baltimore headquarters at Miller's Court in Charles Village. Besides, being centrally located, Hampden is relatively low in street crime, walkable, has all services nearby, and is close to the Hopkins Homewood campus for those interested in grad school options. It has now a bit of the feel of Brooklyn, New York--a mix of hipsters, working folks, retirees, young professionals, students, and yes, even a few yuppies and college profs. Come give us a look!

relocation tidbits

Buz has had a pretty busy August and September with relocation jobs, and has found a lot of interesting places along with his clients who are moving to Baltimore---

• We've been really impressed by the newly renovated Falls Road Apartments, in a little court just off the 4200 block of Falls Road in the neighborhood of Medfield, just north of 41st street border with Hampden. (A lot of people think this is Hampden). Wow! What a deal. Now, nothing special, but you can get a nice, clean, never-lived-in-since-renovated apartment, all new appliances and systems, bright, freshly-painted, and airy; in a relatively low crime area of the city, centrally located; for one bedroom at $795/month. People moving to Baltimore are voting with their feet: you see cars from many states in the parking lot. No amenities: no gym, no pool, no biz center/concierge BS. But you get free parking on their lot, and access to their small laundry room ( 3 sets of washer/driers). You want all the exercise stuff you can pay for it yourself: Meadowbrook is up the street a bit, along with Whole Foods. And a city police officer lives here too. To top it all off, the leasing agent is moving here next week.
• I am really depressed, on the other hand, at how poorly privately-owned properties show, when compared to professionally-managed. Like, can't you, if you're a landlord make the place look nice and presentable and livable before you put an ad on Craigslist? Most can't. The places in Charles Village show especially poorly; but I guess the landlords there are so used to sucking from the Johns Hopkins trough, and charging high rents for their deferred maintenance, they have little incentive to worry about making the place they're renting look nice.
• The smart Hopkins kids moving off campus look for a decent place in Hampden.
• A recent Goucher grad just moved into a whole house, shared with several girl friends in Hampden; she told me that she doesn't worry about the Charles Village crime anymore.
• Many apartments are now adding fees on to the rent, so watch your bottom line, if it's important to you: they're charging for water, sewer, trash removal, amenities, public areas, and making you share the gas and electric bill with others. Makes me uneasy.

Can a black gal move to Hampden without singing the blues?

Buz recently had as a client for relocation a pretty African-American professional woman who was moving to Baltimore in order to be a program person for Teach for America. We spent seven-and-a-half hours looking at apartments in her price range, that were in the city. She would be working in city schools, and though there were some nice apartments in Owings Mills, she really wanted to live in the city.

But Buz was left with a conundrum: several areas/price range, and availability were in Hampden, with the kind of housing she was looking for. But I didn't really want to show her apartments where, if living there, she would feel uncomfortable, or worse case: where she may feel unsafe.

We know Hampden is changing, and for most young professionals, race is irrelevant. But Hampden has had a long history, shall we say, of being unwelcome for black people.

So, we ended up looking a one place there, a kinda neat, funky, "loft". And then we looked at a rowhouse apartment, but it wasn't ready. But I ventured into the area with her with a certain amount of trepidation.