Enterprise Foundation

No high-falutin' Hollywood premiere of The Score for Edward Norton. This movie star chose to appear at the Baltimore premiere of his latest film at the Senator Theatre, benefiting the Enterprise Foundation, which his late grandfather James Rouse co-founded. The Columbia native arrived at the theater driving a relative's Saturn, rolling down the window to ask where he should park. At a pre-screening reception held by Enterprise Women's Network of Baltimore, Norton, in a dusky-blue button-down shirt and black slacks, made a point of trying to chat with each of the 50 folks mingling in the theater mezzanine.

Thirty years ago, Enterprise Community Partners began with three women, one man and a dream. The women were members of a local church, and the man was Jim Rouse, the real estate developer responsible for Columbia. Together, they had a dream that everyone should have the opportunity to live in an affordable home. “The company was founded as a social enterprise that uses public and private partnership to achieve the goal that everyone has an affordable home in a diverse, thriving community,” says Terri Ludwig, president and CEO of Enterprise, which is based in Columbia.

Ten years after he founded the Enterprise Foundation, a non-profit organization whose goal is to provide "fit and affordable" housing for all low-income Americans who need it, James Rouse is relinquishing the title of chief executive officer, effective in July.Trustees of the Enterprise Foundation voted earlier this week to approve the appointment of two Enterprise executives, F. Barton Harvey III and Paul C. Brophy, to succeed Mr. Rouse in his role as chief executive officer. Both will carry the title of vice chair and co-chief executive officer.

Patricia T. "Patty" Rouse, who with her late husband, Columbia developer James W. Rouse, co-founded Enterprise Community Partners Inc. and who devoted her life to making sure that decent and affordable housing was accessible to all Americans, died Monday afternoon from complications of Alzheimer's disease and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at Vantage House in Columbia. The Wilde Lake resident was 85. "Patty Rouse was a visionary, who, along with her husband, saw a time when all Americans would have a home they could call their own," Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, a Baltimore Democrat, said in a statement released Tuesday.

Oakland Mills, one of Columbia's original villages, has suffered significant hits in recent years: a perception of high crime, gaping vacancies in its village shopping center and a grade-changing scandal in its namesake high school. The community has been attempting to reinvigorate its community and image, and the Enterprise Foundation - a national neighborhood revitalization group founded by James W. and Patty Rouse - is stepping in to help. At a community meeting tomorrow, the group will talk with residents about their concerns and attempt to find solutions.

The $120,000 townhouses in Columbia. The new pink-and-mauve townhouses with garages in Baltimore's Druid Heights. More than 2,000 homes in and around Portland, Ore.The Enterprise Foundation has made them all possible, quietly building a nationwide network of loans, partnerships and grants to create 100,000 homes for low-income people.Yesterday, the Columbia-based foundation, a legacy of the late developer James W. Rouse, celebrated that milestone at 14 sites across the country. One of them was the Druid Heights section of Baltimore, where Enterprise has worked with Druid Heights Community Development Corp.

The Enterprise Foundation has received a $500,000 grant from the Fannie Mae Foundation for its "neighborhood transformation project" in West Baltimore's Sandtown-Winchester area.The grant will be used as the Enterprise Foundation and the city, in partnership with community leaders, try to improve housing, schools, health care and other services in Sandtown.The gift comes as former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, are to be in Sandtown today to help renovate vacant houses as part of a Habitat for Humanity International project.

Sun staff writer Jim Haner has been named the winner of the Excellence in Urban Journalism Award, given by the Enterprise Foundation and the Freedom Forum, for his 1999 series on an East Baltimore neighborhood known as "Zombieland." The honor, awarded yesterday at the Enterprise Foundation's annual convention in Atlanta, was for an investigation into how drug dealers and other criminals threaten urban renewal efforts by buying up slum rental houses. Haner's stories also focused attention on the continuing epidemic of lead paint poisoning, from which some 1,200 children suffer every year in Baltimore's inner-city neighborhoods.

The sale of the Rouse Co. to an out-of-town competitor made waves yesterday across the high-stakes world of commercial real estate. But officials at the Columbia-based real estate development company also took steps to ensure that the philanthropic legacy of founder James Rouse would carry on. As part of the sale, the company will give its philanthropic arm - the Rouse Foundation -a $20 million bequest, according to Anthony W. Deering, Rouse's chairman,...

A crowd of Long Reach village residents objected last night to a proposed affordable housing development, expressing concern that the project would adversely affect property values and create a segregated island of low-income housing."

The vacant lot off North Fulton Avenue in Sandtown-Winchester was like many in the city -- a dumping ground for discarded bricks, concrete, paper and wire. A neighborhood junkyard. That was before community activists in the West Baltimore neighborhood hatched an idea: Why not, they asked, convert the eyesore into a park, a place where young and old could barbecue, celebrate birthdays or simply enjoy a rare patch of green? Yesterday, that vision took shape as about 100 volunteers set about to transform the lot into the Bruce Street Park, named after the alley that runs alongside the property.

TYLETTE Gregory spent most of her childhood in the dilapidated and drug-infested projects of West Baltimore, crammed into a 10th-floor apartment with her mother and five siblings. As an adult with children of her own, living in apartments or with relatives, Gregory saw homeownership as her ticket to a better life. Affording a house, though, seemed out of reach. These days, when she relaxes on her front porch in a suburban-style community where neighbors jog and walk dogs, Gregory, 35, can hardly believe she lives just blocks from the now-demolished Lexington Terrace where she grew up. And it's even harder to believe she and her husband own the brick-front, six-room townhouse in Heritage Crossing, where her kids have their own bedrooms.

The sale of the Rouse Co. to an out-of-town competitor made waves yesterday across the high-stakes world of commercial real estate. But officials at the Columbia-based real estate development company also took steps to ensure that the philanthropic legacy of founder James Rouse would carry on. As part of the sale, the company will give its philanthropic arm - the Rouse Foundation -a $20 million bequest, according to Anthony W. Deering, Rouse's chairman,...

Oakland Mills, one of Columbia's original villages, has suffered significant hits in recent years: a perception of high crime, gaping vacancies in its village shopping center and a grade-changing scandal in its namesake high school. The community has been attempting to reinvigorate its community and image, and the Enterprise Foundation - a national neighborhood revitalization group founded by James W. and Patty Rouse - is stepping in to help. At a community meeting tomorrow, the group will talk with residents about their concerns and attempt to find solutions.

Gone are the days when Uncle Sam footed most of the bill for affordable housing. Public financing is scarcer as the need for cheaper homes is greater. Nonprofits trying to provide accommodations that low- and moderate-income people can afford to buy or rent have increasingly turned to the people who spend their time trying to turn a profit - developers and bankers. "More and more of what's going on in community development has come from the private sector market," said Clarence Snuggs, Baltimore office director for the Enterprise Foundation, a national neighborhood revitalization group based in Columbia.

In Baltimore City Boy, 8 months, found on street with cord around his neck An 8-month-old boy was found on a West Baltimore street with a cord wrapped around his neck and a rat-tailed comb lodged in his throat early yesterday -- an incident that is being investigating as child abuse, city police said. The infant, Shelton Miller, was in serious condition and breathing with the help of a ventilator at University of Maryland Medical Center's pediatric intensive care unit, police said. At 6:07 a.m., police received a call reporting that a baby had been abandoned in the 1400 block of Mountmor Court.

Columbia-based Enterprise Foundation has named Terri Y. Montague, a Boston real estate executive, president and chief operating officer. Montague will arrive Sept. 4 to oversee daily operations of the national nonprofit organization, which works to revitalize low-income neighborhoods. She has been a manager with Lend Lease Real Estate Investments and its predecessor, Boston Financial. She also consulted for Boston's public facilities department while doing graduate studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

STTAR gets U.S. funds for workplace sensitivity training The Columbia-based Sexual Trauma Treatment, Advocacy and Recovery (STTAR) Center Inc. has received funding through the federal Violence Against Women Act to provide training on dealing with sexual harassment in the workplace. The training will include the definition of sexual harassment, steps to take when being harassed, the consequences of harassing behavior and the liability of management in cases of sexual harassment. The center, a nonprofit agency providing services to victims of sexual crimes, will also provide sensitivity training to help employees who have sexually harassed co-workers change their behavior.

Baltimore lags seriously behind comparable cities in its neighborhood development efforts because of an array of organizational problems, a new study says - a conclusion undisputed by a cross section of civic leaders. Baltimore lacks clearly defined development goals, and it needs more financial and leadership assistance from its leading companies, more focused support from business groups and better leadership of public development groups, the report says. City officials say they know the development effort is falling short.

Don't ask a Fairspring resident who has the best apartment. You might start an argument. Residents of the four-story, red-brick apartment complex for seniors in Edmondson Heights, which opened in September, are happy with their new homes. "Up on the fourth floor, that's the penthouse. That's where I live," said Pauline Burton, 69, a retired food service employee for Baltimore schools. But Burton's former co-worker and longtime friend, Luberta Jones, thinks her apartment on the second floor is best because of the view.