Squeegee Enforcement Reflects Humanity In Baltimore
/Did you know that the word humanity comes from the Latin “Humanitas” which means "human nature, kindness?”
Ok! Ok! I’m pretty sure you were familiar with the word. But, after listening to the stories shared by Baltimore youth, during last week's Squeegee Collaborative Playbook Event, I do wonder if we remember what humanity feels like and looks like in action.
As a storyteller, I love to discover narratives. They act as a guiding light…a North Star for your vision. If I were asked to choose a theme for our city it would be “Reimaging Baltimore Through Collaboration, Collaboration, & More Collaboration.”
Look! The secret is out! Superman was never coming to save us because “the people” have always been the heroes we’ve been waiting for.
As a black woman born and raised in Baltimore, it was an honor for my small company and team to plan the Squeegee Collaboratives’ Playbook Kick-Off Event. It was a true labor of love and proof that “Humanity” is alive in #MyBmore.
Audacity Team w/ Shelonda Stokes, CEO, Downtown Partnership Baltimore
During the Summer of 2022, Mayor Brandon M. Scott convened the ‘Squeegee Collaborative’ – a cross-section of youth, business, community, and government leaders to develop a city-wide, public, private and community-based response to the challenges AND OPPORTUNITIES squeegeeing presents to the City of Baltimore.
Over the course of four months, more than 150 residents and community leaders from across the city came together to engage in some of the rawest, most tense, and honest conversations.
The goal was to create a viable path to eliminating squeegeeing.
This Tuesday, January 10, 2023, Baltimore Leadership activated six-disallowed panhandling/squeegee zones where approaching drivers is banned.
These high-traffic areas include:
Wabash Avenue and Northern Parkway
Mount Royal and North Avenues at the I-83 off-ramps
The JFX at President Street
MLK Boulevard and I-395
Light and Conway Streets and I-395
A squeegee worker caught working in one of those areas will receive two warnings, before being issued a ticket.
We are not going back to mass incarceration, but people will be held accountable.
What makes the squeegee collaborative plan unique is that enforcement is being coupled with resources and services for our youth. The goal is to eliminate the root challenges that cause squeegeeing to even take place.
This is one of BALTIMORE’s most innovative citywide initiatives.
Many of these measures and bold ideas have never been tried before or in such a coordinated way. It has been a collaborative effort from beginning to end.
Please don’t allow this to be a soft whisper on your evening news. This is a herculean effort.
Over the past 40 years, the City has developed multiple plans and deployed a series of strategies aimed at curbing squeegeeing – yet it persists.
Dating back as early as the 1980s, Baltimore has grappled with the challenge of youth panhandling – or squeegee workers, who disrupt high-traffic intersections washing windshields to earn money.
During that time, selling water, squeegeeing, or simply asking for donations NEVER incited the visceral response you hear today from residents and businesses regarding young black boys who squeegee.
The Squeegee Collaborative Team—Co-Chaired by Joe Jones, Founder & CEO of Center For Urban Families and John Brothers, President, T. Rowe Price Foundation under the guidance of Deputy Mayor Faith Leach and Shelonda Stokes, CEO of Downtown Partnership)— are doing something historic. In order for this plan to work it will require every last one of us to take accountability (from the skeptics to the believers and everyone in between).
We didn’t just get here? Let’s take it back.
On March 11, 2020, The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak a global pandemic, which ravaged the African-American communities throughout BALTIMORE and other major urban cities across the United States.
We didn’t just get here. Let’s take it back.
By September 2020, 97.9 out of every 100,000 African-Americans had died from COVID-19, a mortality rate a third higher than Latinos and more than double whites and Asians (National Library of Medicine).
Image Credit: PhilLytrib.com
We didn’t just get here. Let’s take it back.
For the next two years that followed, up until this very hour, the social injustices and inequalities that African-Americans face have been magnified 100’x over, scrutinized to the 10th degree, and actually debated as if there is a plausible opposing argument for kidnapping tribes of Black Kings and Queens from their homeland and enslave them to build a nation that refuses to recognize its architects.
We didn’t just get here. Let’s take it back.
If we are being honest with ourselves, squeegeeing had never been as polarizing a topic until the years following the death of Freddie Gray and the 2015 Baltimore Uprising.
“The events that followed the death of Freddie Gray revealed several Baltimore fault lines, including a disconnect between younger generations who are awakening to the structural racism and inequality that limits their opportunity, and "established institutions that purport to make things better.” ~ After the Uprising, Uplifting Baltimore’s Youth | Open Society Foundation
Deny it all you want but as my friend, Erricka Bridgeford, Executive Director of Baltimore Community Mediation Center and Co-Founder of Baltimore Peace Movement (formerly Baltimore CeaseFire 365) says, “We as a city share a collective consciousness.”
There are no coincidences, only confirmations.
The topic of “squeegeeing” is at the epicenter of race and poverty.
And, when reflecting on the historically oppressed and under-resourced communities of Baltimore, the last seven years should have taught us that the plight of the people in and around our communities directly impacts “the people, places, and businesses” in and around our communities.
Reports have made it undeniably clear that arresting and incarcerating youth is an ineffective response to individuals being birthed into pervasive poverty.
So, before we shout, “lock em up!” How about we develop a path for our young black men to attain support services, diversion programs, employment, entrepreneurship, and education so there is NO NEED to squeegee?
No plan is ever perfect but the Squeegee Collaborative Team, the Mayor’s Office of African American Male Engagement, and Downtown Partnership of Baltimore are committed to resolving squeegee in a way that reflects our humanity and creates better opportunities for young men and women who squeegee, as well as addressing safety concerns for our residents and visitors.