The 449th session of Maryland’s General Assembly kicks off this week on Wednesday, January 14, 2026. We’re diving in head first for this year’s 90-day sprint to pass transformative legislation that will improve community health, combat systematic environmental devastation caused by state-enabled corporations, and move us toward a more just and equitable future for our youth.
Last year, the CHERISH Our Communities Act made its way through the General Assembly as SB 978 / HB 1484 sponsored by Sen. Clarence Lam (D12) and Del. Jazz Lewis (D24), but stalled in House and Senate committees.
Since then, we’ve continued organizing, and we’re going all-in on the bill again this year with our ever-expanding coalition of environmental justice partners. The CHERISH Our Communities Act follows examples set by lawmakers in New Jersey, New York, and Minnesota to create new permitting requirements for facilities that have major environmental impact on nearby communities. It also gives Maryland Department of Environment a clear mandate—and the authority—to consider environmental justice when making permit decisions.
If the bill passes in 2026, residents in the most polluted neighborhoods across the state will be protected from new facilities that would make the pollution problem even worse. Pollution from existing facilities will also have to decrease. Meanwhile, positive development that doesn’t harm people’s health will be free to thrive.
Fun fact: CHERISH was named by Carlos, SBCLT’s very own youth outreach specialist. CHERISH = from Cumulative Harms to Environmental Restoration for Improving our Shared Health
Take action to pass CHERISH in 2026 by following the links below!
1626 Hazel Street is currently for sale. Interested buyers can reach out to our Stewardship Coordinator today to schedule a viewing and learn about what it means to buy from South Baltimore Community Land Trust.
This home is part of the block of homes that started it all: In 2017, a three-alarm fire displaced two dozen residents from the 1600 block of Hazel Street. When the city put the 9 damaged homes into receivership, our vision for community transformation started to take shape.
What if…
… we bought homes on the block and put them into a community land trust? … we prevented speculators and malicious landlords from capitalizing on this tragedy? … we kept these homes permanently affordable so that opportunities are handed down from generation to generation? … we stewarded this neighborhood in a way that returns community power to the people who live here?
And that’s the origin story of the South Baltimore Community Land Trust!
1626 Hazel Street is a beautiful 2 bedroom/1.5 bath renovation. It’s part of a cluster of SBCLT homes that overlook Curtis Bay Park — you’ll have a playground, picnic pavilion, and space for your dog to run around just out your front door. Plus, you’ll be just around the corner from the new South Baltimore Environmental Justice Center! View the real estate listing here, and let us know if you’re ready to explore homeownership with SBCLT.
We’re looking back at our highlights of 2025 as we count down to the new year. Celebrate these 12 victories with us!
12. We completed our first permanently affordable home rehabs and welcomed our first homeowner!
Celebrating our first homeowner at her closing!
11. SBCLT was selected as one of 27 communities across Maryland to launch ENOUGH: Engaging Neighbors, Organizations, Unions, Government, and Households. As the host organization of Brooklyn/Curtis Bay ENOUGH, we are part of a targeted initiative to end childhood poverty in Brooklyn and Curtis Bay. Kayla Smith, our BCB ENOUGH organizer, attended training at the William Julius Wilson Institute and has built a superstar team of community resident leaders who are organized, passionate, and ready to end child poverty!
Brooklyn/Curtis Bay ENOUGH leaders
10. We continued to call for city and state funding for municipal compost and a transition plan away from incineration.
9. SBCLT and our allies hosted a rally to announce new research on the true costs of living in an overburdened community — waste incineration in Baltimore City causes $36.9 million/year (!!!) in health damages. Read the report here.
Scenes from the July 25 rally. Councilman Blanchard (pictured holding his son) emphasized role of Baltimore City in maintaining existing inequitable systems and the city’s role in correcting it.
8. In September, we co-hosted the 11th Annual Environmental Justice and Health Disparities Symposium of the Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice, and Health (CEEJH), participating in multiple plenary sessions and hosting solidarity tours in South Baltimore for guests from around the world.
7. SBCLT youth from Benjamin Franklin High School created, designed, and launched Toxic Overburden: 100 Years of Environmental Injustice and Resistance, a professional museum exhibit about the policies, practices, and budgets that have made our state and city officials complicit in ongoing environmental violence. The exhibit was the culmination of years of collaboration, research, and documentation with Dr. Nicole Fabricant of Towson University, and was on display at the Peale Museum and Baltimore Unity Hall.
The Peale Museum exhibit pictured here was on display from April 10, 2025 – June 29, 2025.
6. We hosted a Day of Service with the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association that brought together volunteers from all across the country and our local communities to clean SBCLT project sites, including beautifying a lot to serve as a food distribution site for Black Yield Institute.
5. Our Mural Arts training program was a 10-week paid internship for local high school students to learn about community engagement, collaborative design, technical preparation processes of mural creation, and financial literacy.
Scenes from our summer Mural Arts training program!
4. SBCLT staff and board traveled to Puerto Rico to share stories of resilience and learn from the inspiring environmental justice leaders of Casa Pueblo in Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. Thank you to our former and forever intern Annalisa Jenkins for uniting our groups in solidarity, and a huge thank you to Princeton University and Goldman Environmental Prize for supporting our trip!
At Casa Pueblo, we were honored to meet and learn from environmental justice leaders from Puerto Rico and Bolivia.
3. We became one of 16 community organizations in Baltimore City to receive investment from theBaltimore Vacants Reinvestment Initiative (BVRI). This program unlocks access to redevelopment construction loan financing to address vacancies around our South Baltimore development clusters, and will help us move forward in our mission of creating permanently affordable housing and development without displacement!
2. We broke ground on our new community hub! The South Baltimore Environmental Justice Center will be a space where citizen science research can take place, where community organizations can gather, and where residents can turn for support and information about the environmental burdens we face. We’re making progress on the renovation, and we’re starting the new year with a new look thanks to our community mural project with artist kolpeace!
1. We were surrounded by a generous, thoughtful, passionate, and visionary community of donors, sustainers, grantors, and volunteers. Because of YOU, we pushed through a challenging year and are able to look toward 2026 with an abundance of blessing and hope.
We can’t wait to see you at our MLK Day of Service on Saturday, January 17, 2026 or at our first-ever fundraiser event, Harvest of Hope, on Saturday, April 18, 2026!
We know your email inbox is overflowing with giving appeals today, and we don’t expect you to open and read them all… not even ours. But in case you happen to open this one (!), we want to take this opportunity to tell you that by the end of 2025, we will have completed SIX home rehabs this year in South Baltimore. 🎊🎉
Earlier this year, Mercy and her family moved into a permanently affordable house in the Brooklyn neighborhood that SBCLT developed.
“From start to finish, your clear communication and attention to details ensured everything went smoothly and efficiently,” Mercy wrote to us afterward. “Thank you for helping us with our girl’s school. This is indeed not just community, but family.”
SBCLT exists to create ✨permanently affordable housing✨ and ✨development without displacement✨ in South Baltimore. This work is only possible because of our community of partners, supporters, donors, and volunteers. Make a donation today to help us build even more homes in 2026!
Together, we can help families like Mercy’s build their futures in South Baltimore. Give today to help us build more houses in 2026!
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