Community Law Center

The Community Law Center likes its clients so much that it invited them all to a Client Celebration at the Baltimore Urban League building and gave a good number of them awards.The center, a private organization of five staff lawyers and about 40 volunteer lawyers, provides free legal representation to Baltimore City community associations. Its executive director is Anne Blumenberg.Clients such as the Harlem Park Revitalization Corp., the Franklin Square Community Association, the Druid Heights Community Development Corp.

Southern Park Heights residents and activists involved in rebuilding their decaying Northwest Baltimore community took time yesterday to celebrate its spirit."

Cocaine killed an intruder who was beaten by neighbors after he broke into a rowhouse this month in the 300 block of Marydell Road in Southwest Baltimore, according to the deputy chief state medical examiner.Nathaniel McFadden, 42, of the 2500 block of McHenry St. died of cocaine intoxication with contributing blunt force injuries, but the blunt force injuries were not life-threatening, said Dr. Ann Dixon, deputy chief state medical examiner.McFadden died Aug. 3, hours after he allegedly broke into Linda Force's residence about 1: 30 a.m. and was attacked outside by neighbors who responded to her cries for help.

BALTIMORE'S NON-PROFIT Community Law Center is 10 years old. Instead of throwing a big birthday party, the organization celebrated the milestone by publishing a manual that tells what it has learned about legal actions that can be used to revitalize neighborhoods."

Jahiri Gunthorpe, age 10, remembers last summer as a typical one in Harlem Park that included witnessing a shooting in front of his home. But Jahiri is not the type to let crime and drugs in his community engulf him.Last summer, he decided to help other youths -- including his twin brother, Rafik -- plant and tend a garden to make his community more appealing."

Joyce Smith remembers when drug trafficking was so blatant at one vacant house in the 1700 block of W. Fayette St. that dealers would hang an "open and closed for business" sign at the entrance.Since then, the city has razed the house. Now the site is occupied by a garden in the shape of Africa that blooms with tulips and daffodils.Yesterday, the president of the Franklin Square Community Association described her successful campaign to rid her West Baltimore neighborhood of drugs and vacant houses during the Citizens Planning and Housing Association's second annual Neighbor-to-Neighbor Expo.

Sylvia Fulwood marches west on East 20th Street, past the men congregating on the front steps of the boarded-up rowhouses, past the bare-chested teen-ager singing out "Five-O" as a police patrol wagon speeds north on Greenmount.Heading toward two vacant houses on 21st Street, she carries a Top 10 list: top 10 nuisances in the East Baltimore-Midway and Barclay neighborhoods.The list identifies abandoned houses where the junkies squat and rental properties where the tenants deal drugs. Under the newly established Community Anti-Drug Assistance Project, Ms. Fulwood plans to lead area residents into court to do something about "nuisance" properties that provide the setting for drug activity and its associated danger and violence.

An unusual auction took place recently on the steps of the Clarence E. Mitchell Courthouse. Four abandoned houses, removed from their owners and ordered into receivership by the District Court, were auctioned to developers eager to rehabilitate them into residential units.This kind of legal redistribution of vacant houses will become a routine procedure in coming months. A total of 71 other vacant houses are to be auctioned by Save A. Neighborhood Inc., a non-profit organization the Community Law Center created to help the court dispose of vacant problem houses under a new city receivership law.The Community Law Center is using this new weapon quite successfully.

The Schmoke administration has asked the courts to give an East Baltimore community group control of two vacant houses in the 1700 block of East Eager Street on the grounds that the houses are a nuisance to the community and should be taken from their owners.A lawsuit filed by the city and the Middle East Community Organization on Thursday seeks to take advantage of a change in the city building code that permits a vacant and derelict building to be declared a nuisance.If the building's owner fails to comply with a city-issued notice and order to rehabilitate, the new law states, the city and community groups may ask the court to appoint a receiver to rehabilitate the property or sell it to someone who can.The suit asks the courts to give control of the houses -- one at 1719 E. Eager St. vacant since 1983 and one at 1737 E. Eager St. vacant since 1988 -- to the Middle East Community Organization.

A recent change in Baltimore's building code allows the city and community leaders to take control of vacant houses from absentee owners and turn them over to non-profit developers for renovation.The city housing department, in conjunction with the non-profit Community Law Center, filed suit in District Court yesterday against the owners of two rowhouses in East Baltimore.The suit asks the court to appoint the Middle East Community Development Organization as a receiver of the properties so they can be renovated and sold to families in the community, which is located near Johns Hopkins Hospital.

The "We Buy Houses" signs plastered illegally across the city drive Robert Strupp crazy. It is not merely that they are ugly. Strupp, with the Community Law Center in Baltimore, sees them as neighborhood destabilizers that make it easier for real estate predators to find prey - but it is not just that, either. No, it is that the city has yet to enforce a nearly two-year-old law allowing citizens who tear them down to take them to city officials so the authorities can fine the sign owners.

The warmth in the Belvedere Hotel ballroom had less to do with the heating system than with the generous spirit that filled the room. Lots of handshakes and hugs as some 200 guests gathered for the Community Law Center's 15th anniversary awards banquet. Folks came to celebrate the group's efforts in providing legal, technical and educational help to Baltimore's community-based organizations, and to honor CLC founding members including Clinton Bamberger, J. Randall Carroll, Mike Pretl and Jamey H. Weitzman.

The Community Law Center likes its clients so much that it invited them all to a Client Celebration at the Baltimore Urban League building and gave a good number of them awards.The center, a private organization of five staff lawyers and about 40 volunteer lawyers, provides free legal representation to Baltimore City community associations. Its executive director is Anne Blumenberg.Clients such as the Harlem Park Revitalization Corp., the Franklin Square Community Association, the Druid Heights Community Development Corp.

Southern Park Heights residents and activists involved in rebuilding their decaying Northwest Baltimore community took time yesterday to celebrate its spirit."

Cocaine killed an intruder who was beaten by neighbors after he broke into a rowhouse this month in the 300 block of Marydell Road in Southwest Baltimore, according to the deputy chief state medical examiner.Nathaniel McFadden, 42, of the 2500 block of McHenry St. died of cocaine intoxication with contributing blunt force injuries, but the blunt force injuries were not life-threatening, said Dr. Ann Dixon, deputy chief state medical examiner.McFadden died Aug. 3, hours after he allegedly broke into Linda Force's residence about 1: 30 a.m. and was attacked outside by neighbors who responded to her cries for help.

Jahiri Gunthorpe, age 10, remembers last summer as a typical one in Harlem Park that included witnessing a shooting in front of his home. But Jahiri is not the type to let crime and drugs in his community engulf him.Last summer, he decided to help other youths -- including his twin brother, Rafik -- plant and tend a garden to make his community more appealing."

BALTIMORE'S NON-PROFIT Community Law Center is 10 years old. Instead of throwing a big birthday party, the organization celebrated the milestone by publishing a manual that tells what it has learned about legal actions that can be used to revitalize neighborhoods."

Joyce Smith remembers when drug trafficking was so blatant at one vacant house in the 1700 block of W. Fayette St. that dealers would hang an "open and closed for business" sign at the entrance.Since then, the city has razed the house. Now the site is occupied by a garden in the shape of Africa that blooms with tulips and daffodils.Yesterday, the president of the Franklin Square Community Association described her successful campaign to rid her West Baltimore neighborhood of drugs and vacant houses during the Citizens Planning and Housing Association's second annual Neighbor-to-Neighbor Expo.

Sylvia Fulwood marches west on East 20th Street, past the men congregating on the front steps of the boarded-up rowhouses, past the bare-chested teen-ager singing out "Five-O" as a police patrol wagon speeds north on Greenmount.Heading toward two vacant houses on 21st Street, she carries a Top 10 list: top 10 nuisances in the East Baltimore-Midway and Barclay neighborhoods.The list identifies abandoned houses where the junkies squat and rental properties where the tenants deal drugs. Under the newly established Community Anti-Drug Assistance Project, Ms. Fulwood plans to lead area residents into court to do something about "nuisance" properties that provide the setting for drug activity and its associated danger and violence.

An unusual auction took place recently on the steps of the Clarence E. Mitchell Courthouse. Four abandoned houses, removed from their owners and ordered into receivership by the District Court, were auctioned to developers eager to rehabilitate them into residential units.This kind of legal redistribution of vacant houses will become a routine procedure in coming months. A total of 71 other vacant houses are to be auctioned by Save A. Neighborhood Inc., a non-profit organization the Community Law Center created to help the court dispose of vacant problem houses under a new city receivership law.The Community Law Center is using this new weapon quite successfully.