> Using flowery language doesn't change a person's conditions, no matter how well intentioned they may be but actual actions do.

100% agreed with you man. This reminds me of a post on here that actually claimed people in West Baltimore have it bad because people on the internet say mean things about their neighborhoods, like calling them "bad."

I also sense a lot of "white savior" esque bullshit going on here - (see https://old.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/1152pbw/what_are_things_racist_people_do_that_they_dont/j8zmank/). A lot of folks harbor some massive narcissism and think the world revolves around their tiny slice of the universe. I bet homeless people don't give a shit what you call them if you can get them out of their situation. Results matter. Internet bullshit does not. Unless you're trying to promote your totally not narcissistic image on social media (people are).

The problem isn't "homeless" vs "unhoused" vs whatever. The problem is mental health issues. A healthcare system that is inaccessible. Mountains of process to get help. Clawing your way out of homelessness while the deck is stacked against you at every step. And on and on and on and on and on. That's the issue. This flowery language is white savior types who think they're the center of the universe and need to speak on everyone's behalf.

Your entire mental process is fundamentally flawed. Homelessness is a complex, multi-faceted problem. You are viewing it with a narrow aperture as solely the absence of a stable housing situation. The reality, however, is that there is a lot more going on.

I would argue the housing situation is a symptom of the problem. The problem is often some combination of a myriad of mental health issues, drug addiction, disabilities, financial crisis, etc. That is what leads to people not having a home. All of that is homelessness, plus the housing situation.

Simply providing a house is not going to address these underlying issues. If you want to solve these root causes you are going to need to be able to provide a large number of services to people. Baltimore is not very good at public transportation, so now what?

And then you have to consider even the mundane, day to day things. How does someone with unreliable transportation (and potentially a disability preventing usage of the existing transportation) get groceries on the regular? Much of these vacants are smack dab in the middle of a food desert.

And then another problem rears its ugly head. Crime. These vacants are generally NOT in good neighborhoods. Dropping off a highly vulnerable population in the middle of crime-ridden areas is basically a recipe for a victim factory.

Once you start to inject reality into the problem it quickly becomes apparent that the fact of a home itself is just a small part of the equation.

Look man, don't let reality get in the way of a good circle jerk. It feels so good to know you have the answer. And to be able to point at a boogeyman. You injecting reality into the discussion is killing the outspoken confident white knight vibe.

I'll just throw this out there - prepare to be a bit disappointed. The hikes here are largely "endless ambiguous seas of green" without the prominent features and epic landscapes of the west. The best hikes around here are going to be so-so compared to most of the stuff you're accustomed to.

The exception is when leaves start to change colors. Especially if you can head up to the New England area. That's pretty awesome and is going to be at least on par with if not beat out snowcapped peaks with yellow aspens.

I'm not trying to discourage you from seeking out hiking and camping trips. But you need to temper your expectations from what you are used to. Both in terms of the hike itself as well as the number of people engaged in the activities.

I truly do not understand this sub's absolute obsession with vacant and run down homes. There are many people here who think they are the panacea to ALL woes. In reality, they're expensive gut jobs at best. Many need to be totally demolished. I suspect a vast majority of people have not actually seen the blocks where vacants are plentiful, much less the actual houses.

Even if you could magically flip the houses on the cheap. You then have to deal with the crime, lack of transportation, crumbling infrastructure, and lack of nearby groceries/businesses. Not easy.

Everything I've read about the homeless problem lends toward it being extremely complicated. There are tons of reasons why people are homeless. There are tons of reasons why people may not be seeking help. There are tons of different services these people will need help with. Nothing is straightforward and like you said, a one size fits all approach is going to be exceptionally difficult, if not impossible, to implement.

Yet, there are plenty of people here who seem to think that the answer is simple. Just force these rich Texans who are gobbling up near-Ukraine warzone level townhomes to sell so we can slap some pinterest gray on the walls and put homeless people in them. Just conveniently ignore the myriad of mental health issues, lack of reliable transportation, them being sitting ducks for criminals, food deserts, etc. None of that is relevant, the answer is soooo simple and has a very convenient boogeyman that can be pointed at.

I always laugh when people complain about how “complicated” taxes are. You can find free to dirt cheap software that does it for you, walks you through each item, and submits for you. 99.9% of people have simple taxes.

Having done assessments of IT/OT Infrastructure this is not surprising. Lots of critical infrastructure sectors have massive asset inventory issues (among other massive issues, often forming a nasty feedback loop) where they just don’t know what they have, what’s running on it, etc. I have literally found servers in closets that were powered on and connected to a network that nobody knew existed. And several different incorrect versions of network architecture and configuration is common. It’s no surprise that they have an incomplete asset inventory and had no record of that asset.

The cost to fix all this properly is going to be astronomical. There will be soooooo much work that will need to be done.

Don’t worry, we’re building cycling infrastructure that connects nothing relevant which will subsequently not be utilized and thus not maintained causing it to fall into a state of disrepair as the debris builds up. “Complete Streets” is a good idea but the execution seems poor, which is par for the course in Baltimore. Meanwhile there’s plenty of opportunities to better connect and improve existing cycling infrastructure. But that gets backburnered.

I read an interesting article that barbershops are effective outlets for disseminating health-related information and services among black communities. Many are skeptical of the healthcare system after many decades of abuse/racism/abhorrent things but barbershops can help reduce the barrier to trusting. Are barbershops ideal places for this? Absolutely not. But if it works… maybe it’s a bridge to a more ideal future. Same could be held for churches.

It’s pretty eye opening when you read the big subreddits. It’s pretty clear they’re full of vocal white people with strong opinions who have never talked to anything but the token black person in their life. They view everything through the lens of their somewhere in the middle class white suburban upbringing. And while their views are total valid for growing up in boring ass Ohio, the experience in many Baltimore neighborhoods is totally different.

I think if you serve on a trial that is long enough (5 days?) you get a 3 year reprieve rather than the usual 1 year

You can wait to postpone until the night before or morning of jury duty. If your number was called, call in and postpone for about 3 months. If your number wasn’t called, congrats!

What do you want to know? It’s a pretty unexciting industrial area on the water.

I feel like someone is going to be disappointed by any market concept. Everyone is going to want something different. Some folks will just pick out things solely because they don’t want to like it.

The run down looking, but affordable, concept seems like it has been on the way out for some time. I think it’s both good and bad. Cross Street Market is much, much cleaner inside. But they have also never reached close to 100% capacity due to rent, prices aren’t great, there’s constant churn, and something like a produce stand seems unlikely. But at the same time it’s a hell of a lot more family friendly.

Extending MARC to Newark would be great. It would be soooo much cheaper (most of the time, unless you book in advance or get lucky) than Amtrak to Philly or another location SEPTA services. Amtrak can be $20 for such a trip... or $98. It's pretty hard to swallow $400 in round trip train tickets for two for a day or weekend in Philly. Driving becomes the obvious choice at that point. $80 for such a trip is reasonable, though, especially if you can avoid paying to park your car in Philly ($$$).

Correct. I do not go to such restaurants. Just like I don’t use Airbnb anymore.

And yes, it hurts the people working there if I get hit with some unpredictable fee. If enough people get pissed off and don’t leave tips then the labor will go elsewhere and the restaurant will have a problem.

They could just be transparent and raise the price of popular dishes by $1 to cover the fee.

Do you actually comb through the latest menu of every restaurant you go to?

As I said, this is not about tipping. It’s about being hit with surprise fees. I’m happy to leave a tip. But once a business engages in deceptive practices I’m going to avoid the business entirely. If enough people avoid such businesses they will outright go out of business so the trend will end. Less directly, if such businesses cannot attract or retain labor because of pissed off customers not leaving tips they will go out of business.

Fees have proven to be a slippery slope - look at how a single burger on something like Uber Eats can be something like $30+ delivered. It won’t be long before there’s the 5% tipping fee. And 10% supply chain fee. And 5% carbon neutral fee. And then you’re asked to leave an actual tip on top of that.

There’s a reason that European countries have passed price transparency laws.

Ultimately, I see this entirely different than you. This is about the now pervasive problem with being asked for tips and being hit with surprise fees nearly everywhere. You can buy stuff at retail and get prompted for some ludicrous 20% (or higher) tip.

I have no problem with leaving an appropriate tip. Or automatic gratuity for larger parties (generally 18% for 6-8+). Or upcharges on menu modifications. The problem is with these surprise fees that are outside of the norm.

I see it as no different than Uber Eats or AirBNB fees. The only difference is that it is currently trendy to be against those fees. Social media has not yet told you to be against surprise fees imposed by restaurants so here we are.

I will be tipping 0% at Foraged. Because I'll never go to a restaurant that imposes non-standard fees. So, it has nothing to do with the "pleasure" of anything.

Just looked at their menu. They tack on a 5% fee allegedly for tipping kitchen staff. A recent conversation in the DC sub about fees: https://old.reddit.com/r/washingtondc/comments/10ilz0v/founding_farmers_charging_a_restaurant_recovery/

Gonna have to pass on this one as a matter of principle. I refuse to support places that hit you with surprise fees. I haven't used Airbnb, Uber Eats, etc. in years because of them. If something like this is added to my bill I make sure to leave zero tip, leave a message on the receipt why there is zero tip, and never return. This ludicrous practice of blindsiding people with arbitrary fees needs to stop.

If you were picky you had to wash your windshield after the squeegee boys “washed” it because it would surely be full of streaks.

I’ll trade this winter full of “40s and rainy” for some snow!

$250K is the price point for more desirable neighborhoods. Here's a short list of some homes in one zip code that are basically turnkey, are not blasts from the past, and don't appear to have anything excessively bizarre in the interior.

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1421-Race-St_Baltimore_MD_21230_M65021-79295

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1301-Clarkson-St_Baltimore_MD_21230_M68202-65940

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1433-Patapsco-St_Baltimore_MD_21230_M68696-80580

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1614-Elkins-Ln_Baltimore_MD_21230_M53295-58754

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1227-Durst-St_Baltimore_MD_21230_M51082-61512

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/424-Sanders-St_Baltimore_MD_21230_M50255-26777

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1628-Jackson-St_Baltimore_MD_21230_M69552-05918

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/1405-Jackson-St_Baltimore_MD_21230_M61305-34550

This kind of stuff is always listed, although the properties do vary.

There are always a number of homes for sale under $250K in desirable neighborhoods. This is objective fact that can be checked by realty websites. If you cast a wider net you can find plenty under $200K, although it won't be in Fed Hill and the like (but still not bad - think Pigtown). For a vast, vast majority of cities such a price point is absolutely unheard of. Baltimore has plenty of affordable housing. If your idea of affordable is in-line with prices of run down homes in meth addict-ridden cities that have been declining for 50 years, then yeah I guess Baltimore isn't affordable. But good luck in those places.

I also get calls. They're cold calling in hopes of finding someone who wants cash now and they can score a deal. It's not unique to Baltimore.

Do you think there is some sort of mass conspiracy to buy gut job homes at an inflated rate and sit on them for decades or something like that? Seems like the homes are purchased on the open market, often at auction, and quickly rehabbed and put back on the market. There's no shortage of newly renovated homes available.