Recently she visited Robin Lipscomb, 52, at Lipscomb's government-owned house on a block of Lexington with rampant drug-dealing. After limping up a few steps, Nueslein settled in, complimenting a handsome if tarnished mirror hanging over the couch.
Lipscomb, a heroin addict who has been clean for a couple of years, lives with her two daughters, ages 18 and 21, and their three young children. She says she hopes to find a job but for now busies herself with cleaning jobs and volunteering.
Lipscomb met Nueslein at a Hezekiah event two year ago and went on a retreat to rural West Virginia. There she saw her first truly starry sky and sat around her first campfire, profound experiences that started a love of the outdoors.
Not long ago, Lipscomb thought about her mentor when a man walked up Lexington asking for help to feed his children. "I was like, what would Sister Katherine do?" (She gave him food but no money.)
Lipscomb and her friends call Nueslein "the modern-day a-rabber." Instead of a horse and wagon, she has her Ford. "When she pulls up, you never know what she has in there," Lipscomb said with a laugh. "She might have food, she might have flowers, she might have clothes."
Drugs were already a problem in Southwest Baltimore when Nueslein arrived from Savannah, Ga., to carry on the work of the Sisters of Mercy. As white flight to the suburbs gained speed, the one-time Irish district morphed into a mixed-race area faced with dilapidation and fading job prospects.
Early on, she and a colleague hit the streets to get acquainted. They began a teen group and a summer camp. She taught preschool and Sunday school. In the early 1980s, she helped start St. Peter's Adult Learning Center to provide job training for developmentally disabled adults and a small housing nonprofit called Southwest Visions.
The problems remain stubbornly entrenched, as Nueslein is reminded every time she sees another former student who's gotten tangled up in drugs. According to a report last year from the Baltimore Health Department, the area around Hollins Market north to Franklin Street had the lowest life expectancy in the city: 62 1/2 years. Of 55 areas in Baltimore, it had the fifth-highest murder rate, third-highest HIV rate and second-highest tally of drug-related deaths.
"Third World" is how Nueslein puts it, and she should know from her annual charity missions to impoverished El Salvador. It's a world where parents have a standing agreement to shield each other's children when, not if, gunfire erupts.
Against this grim backdrop are some stirrings of change. The Hollins Market area has added shops and restaurants. The University of Maryland BioPark has begun to rise along West Baltimore Street. And a number of formerly vacant houses have been fixed up, said Jane Buccheri, president of the Hollins Roundhouse community association.
These days Nueslein squeezes physical therapy into a jammed schedule. Tuesdays, she holds a prayer hour and lunch; Thursdays, it's the weekly prayer dinner. Nueslein says she has no intention of moving, just as she's given no thought to retiring. As soon as her left hip heals, she'd like to have the right one replaced. "If I get that other hip," she said, "I'll be good as new."
