Advertisement 2 similar Baltimore-area communities now exemplify widening racial wealth gap

Two communities that were so similar to each other when they were built are now an example of a widening gap in value.The 11 News I-Team exposes the racial wealth gap in a story told through two Baltimore-area communities, one in the city, the other in the county. The I-Team dug into land records, archives and investment patterns and found property deeds with controversial racial covenants.Rubye Cameron and George Cameron's house is the only one they've ever owned. It's an example of the American dream instilled by family."You bought your house first, and that's the way we went, saving our money to buy a house," Rubye Cameron said.The Camerons' house is in Edmondson Village on the west side of Baltimore. The two-story, 1,200-square-foot brick rowhome, as well as others on the block, was built in 1942. The builder was the company founded by James Keelty.At about the same time, the company built similar two-story, 1,200-square-foot brick rowhomes in Rodgers Forge in Baltimore County, where Chris DiGiorgio has raised his family."It hasn't changed forever. It has been stable the last 20, 30 years. Nothing has changed," DiGiorgio said.They're two neighborhoods with almost identical houses, built by the same company at almost the same time.But today, there is a distinct difference in the value of the properties.In recent years, sales of houses in Edmondson Village have averaged $84,969. Over the same time, sales in Rodgers Forge have averaged $274,287 -- more than triple the Edmondson Village sales.The difference is explained by a complex story of race, investment and how real estate has been used to grow wealth."That avenue has been traditionally where most Americans create generational wealth. For black Americans, it has been dicey in that area," said Raymond Winbush, a Morgan State University professor and director of the Institute for Urban Research.Edmondson Village was a white community in the 1940s. In the 1960s, it became a hotbed of the real estate practice known as blockbusting."Typically, blockbusters bought low and then turned houses racially and sold high to African Americans," said Ed Orser, an author and professor emeritus of American studies at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. "They are able to either take advantage of or create fear of racial change."The 11 News I-Team's research shows most of the people who originally bought houses on the Camerons' block -- white people -- sold in the early to mid-1960s, not to another homeowner, but to real estate middlemen. One used the name Straw Man Inc.Sometimes, those firms then signed black people to land installment contracts akin to rent-to-own. For example, one house was acquired by a real estate firm in 1964 for $6,000. The firm then signed a biracial couple to a land-installment contract a year and a half later for almost double the price: $11,900.The contract required the couple to make weekly payments and cover the taxes and insurance without actually owning the house. The couple did just that and took title to the property in 1983 -- 17 years without the benefit of the equity in the house."Blacks gained housing, but at a high price and often in very unstable circumstances," Orser said.The original owners of the Camerons' house, a white couple, sold in 1964 to a real estate company. The sales price they took was also $6,000. The Camerons moved in to the house in 1969, by which time that part of Edmondson Village had totally flipped from white to black: In 1960, the community was 99% white; in 1970, it was 97% black.The recorded price the Camerons paid was nearly $13,000. But as hard as it was for black people to buy property at that time, the Camerons were thrilled to own."We did quite well with it because we had no problems with paying," Rubye Cameron said.There was no blockbusting in Rodgers Forge. There were covenants in the deeds in the early 1940s that specifically prohibited black people from living there -- with one exception: "No person of any race other than the white race shall use or occupy any building or lot except domestic servants."Such covenants were later struck down by the Supreme Court."Black folk have always been denied that in various ways, not only through the racial covenants, we couldn't move in certain areas," Winbush said. "So it has always been kind of a fickle lover for black people to own real estate."The area surrounding Rodgers Forge has seen steady growth in investment. Both public and private dollars have been poured into Towson University, University of Maryland St. Joseph Medical Center and the Greater Baltimore Medical Center. All have boosted the value of the community.Edmondson Village has seen little investment. A new housing project has yet to be completed because of insufficient infrastructure funding, according to a city official. The big-name stores of the shopping center are long gone. And the $2.6 billion Red Line transit project was killed by Gov. Larry Hogan in 2015."Here you have a very clear economic lesson in terms of the gap," Orser said. "Over time, those properties become less and less valuable."The Camerons have no regrets about staying in Edmondson Village. But the gap between what their house is now worth and what the houses in Rodgers Forge are worth is 69%.In 2018, Rodgers Forge became the first community in Maryland to move to remove the language of the racial covenants in deeds. It isn't the only community with such covenants in deeds. Community members plan to testify at a hearing in Annapolis next week.