Op-Ed: Solving Baltimore’s missing middle housing and affordability crisis

Baltimore is facing a housing crisis. 

The city continues to experience high vacancy rates and under investment while carrying a shortage of 33,000 housing units. These factors combine to reduce housing affordability and place a heavy financial burden on city residents by elevating home prices and necessitating a high property tax rate. 

The crisis really comes into focus when considering that increases in grocery prices and energy rates are forcing Baltimore families to choose between keeping a roof over their heads, putting food on the table, and keeping the heat on through the winter. Worse yet, unaffordability in housing has contributed to an increase in homelessness in Baltimore and the deaths of more than 80 of our unhoused neighbors in 2025. 

It doesn’t need to be this way.

The solution is state-led investment to build new housing and rehabilitate or replace vacant structures quickly and at scale. Our leaders in the Maryland General Assembly must take bold action to reverse Baltimore’s housing crisis. We have the opportunity to turn the city into the example by which all other major American cities measure success in housing policy.

To do this, the General Assembly needs to partner with Baltimore City to create a citywide land trust under a new authority funded by a $1 billion bond initiative at the state level. The organizational structure would mirror other successful authorities, such as the South Baltimore Gateway Partnership. 

The new land trust would be responsible for taking ownership of over 13,000 vacant lots and homes currently owned by Baltimore City, and contracting with local builders and trades to build new housing. 

The new housing created under the land trust could then be sold and rented at costs affordable to the median Baltimorean, as there is no profit incentive. This proposal is cost-neutral, paying back the state-issued bonds over time with the revenue generated by the sale and rent of new homes, property tax, income tax, and sales tax. 

Governor Wes Moore’s $50 million Baltimore Vacancy Reinvestment Initiative uses a similar funding approach to rehabilitate vacant properties in distressed neighborhoods elsewhere.  

For the land trust strategy to work, the focus must be on what is known as ‘missing middle’ housing. The missing middle is defined as all housing types that sit between detached single-family homes, like those in Ashburton, and high-density apartments. Think modest row homes, duplexes, and cottage court apartments. 

The missing middle is the most in-demand segment of the housing market, yet developers no longer build middle-class housing due to low profit margins. As such, most newly constructed homes are unaffordable luxury townhomes and apartments like the Reservoir Square development on North Avenue, where home prices start at nearly $400,000. 

What is needed instead are homes priced in the $100,000 to $250,000 range, and apartments priced at $1,000 to $1,500 per month. 

Vacant building notices are concentrated in East and West Baltimore (OpenBaltimore)

Baltimore’s vacant properties will be central to the strategy for increasing the availability of affordable housing. Since vacancies are concentrated in West and East Baltimore, building thousands of middle-market homes on city-owned vacant properties could make Mayor Brandon Scott’s Affordable Housing Tax Increment Financing initiative more attractive to developers, and spur private investment as the market competes in newly revitalized neighborhoods.

The mix of government and market-based housing investment generated by these proposals is necessary to help restore Baltimore’s vibrant, mixed-income, Black communities for decades to come. However, these various state- and city-level efforts cannot be effective on their own.

Offering tax incentives for development in the absence of additional government investment has not moved the needle on the housing crisis. The market has failed to meet the demand for middle-market housing, instead favoring the construction of luxury housing units that offer higher profit margins. 

There is some evidence that building high-end housing may alleviate pressure on the middle housing market, but not enough to overcome the large demand and undersupply in that market segment. According to the Maryland Association of Realtors, missing-middle housing used to account for 7% of our overall housing stock, but today accounts for less than 1%. 

Meanwhile, the Baltimore-Columbia-Towson metropolitan area has been listed among the bottom U.S. metros in 2024 for new housing unit construction, with only 6.3 units being built per 1,000 existing homes. 

Instituting a citywide land trust is necessary to urgently rectify decades of under-building and fulfill middle-market housing demand in Baltimore. This is not a fantastical solution without precedent. The largest land trust in the U.S., Vermont’s Champlain Housing Trust, has created permanent housing affordability for renters and homeowners since 1984.

Here in Baltimore, working people who are facing our lack of housing do not need an affordable home built 15 years in the future. They need affordable homes built right now.

In the 2020 U.S. Census, Baltimore saw a population decline to about 586,000 residents from 621,000 previously, but an increase in the number of households from nearly 250,000 to 251,500. At the same time, average household size has decreased to 2.26 in 2020 from 3.14 in 1970. These changes indicate that smaller family units need more homes in Baltimore City.  

Rebuilding the missing-middle housing segment with affordability in mind comes with myriad benefits. 

It could mitigate Baltimore’s shortage of approximately 33,000 housing units, boost the city’s population by over 70,000 residents, and help stabilize the city’s budget. With increased revenues from a larger tax base, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott would be able realize his goal of reducing property taxes for Baltimore residents. 

It is time to take Baltimore’s housing crisis seriously. It is time for the General Assembly to implement creative solutions that bring down costs for working families without blowing up the state budget. It is time to rebuild and reinvest in Baltimore.

Dianté Edwards is a candidate for District 40 State Delegate in Maryland’s General Assembly, former president of Citizens of Pigtown community association, and board member of South Baltimore Gateway Partnership. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy and proud resident of Pigtown.