Baltimore City is home to nearly 30,000 abandoned, boarded-up buildings, nearly all of them safety and fire hazards. The city owns most of these structures, eyesores at best. At worst they become rat-infested sites of criminal activity. Baltimore spends nearly $12 million annually on demolition projects, ripping down and dumping toxic materials into landfills.
In 2009 a group of innovative thinkers, community activists and lawmakers decided to tackle both problems at once by creating a program that would train those leaving the city's correctional system in deconstruction: the systematic disassembly of a building to maximize recycling and reuse (or reclamation). Why not train ex-offenders to dismantle buildings -- using green processes -- rather than simply demolish? The city's infrastructure would benefit, and these men would be trained for their future. (Nearly two-thirds of those released from incarceration will return to jail or prison, but that percentage drops to a third for those who get help from programs designed to help ex-offenders return to their communities.) Thus the Barclay Deconstruction and Reclamation pilot project was born.
Hathaway Ferebee and John Friedel of the Safe & Sound Campaign, an organization dedicated to improving conditions for Baltimore families, negotiated partnerships with the mayor's office and the Maryland-based Jericho Reentry Program, which helps men who are being released from jail or prison move back into the work force. The collaboration also included a local minority-owned firm, L&J Construction, and the Seattle-based expert deconstruction team Reuse Consultants, which has worked on similar green projects in Chicago, Cincinnati and Buffalo, N.Y. With funding from a Community Service Block Grant from the ARRA and the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Barclay Deconstruction project trained and hired nine former offenders to form a crew to dismantle five abandoned buildings in Baltimore.
Dave Bennink of Reuse Consultants makes the case that training former offenders in deconstruction is good economic policy: "These are all local jobs that cannot be shipped overseas, and we are working to make them living-wage jobs requiring different levels of experience, and potentially launching workers into other related careers." The construction industry, which had flourished until the housing crash of 2008, had always been among the most welcoming for ex-offenders. But the economic downturn hit it hard, and most of those participating in the private deconstruction training that Bennink oversees are experienced construction crews.
Donnie Wilson, 55, and Neil Joseph, 45, are the Barclay crew leaders. "It's a great project," Wilson says. "These buildings need to come down, and we have the skills to do it." Wilson and Joseph are excited to be working for L&J Construction and are eager to see the project expanded into different parts of the city. Kelavin Weaver and Brian Huntley, both 27, are new to deconstruction work and shyly enthusiastic about making a career in the field. "I can see myself doing this for a while," Huntley says. "I like it."
Philip Pie of the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) supports the project for its emphasis not only on the "hard" skills of deconstruction and reclamation among ex-offenders but also on "soft" skills such as interacting with employers and other employees. In fact, much of the materials from the dismantled buildings, such as bricks and floor joists, are now headed to DPSCS facilities for use in its own training projects "behind the fence." And, Pie adds, "it's good for [the men] to feel they're giving back."
-The Root,Hollis Robbins is a professor of humanities at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University and teaches African-American poetry and poetics at the Center for Africana Studies.
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Barclay Deconstruction Projectby BaltimoreReclamation171 views
Umm Dumb Fuck! Ware Do You Think They Take The Asbestos & Other Toxins!?! Just another landfill that cost 10 times more!.....
AGDemo 1 year ago
Yeah Fuck! Save The Landfills & Burn Em All Down!
AGDemo 1 year ago