2021: A Year Building a Better, Safer City Together

December 2021

The Year in Review

The Mayor’s Office of Children & Family Success is charged with working to radically improve the lives of Baltimore’s children and families. Here is how we have worked towards that charge through 2021.

A Conversation with Mayor Scott and Baltimore Youth: Building a Better, Safer City Together

“[My Administration will]Invest in the promise of our young people instead of their failures, and ensure they have a seat at the table.” – Mayor Brandon M. Scott

One of Mayor Scott’s four pillars for his administration is Prioritizing Our Youth (view Mayor Brandon M. Scott Building a Better Baltimore, Prioritizing Youth core pillar).

To advance this priority, Mayor Scott tasked the Mayor’s Office of Children & Family Success with launching a bi-annual youth summit to hear directly from the City’s youth.

A Conversation with Mayor Scott and Baltimore Youth: Building a Better, Safer City Together focused on violence prevention included three conversations with the mayor and youth over three days, May 20-22, 2021.

The first two conversations were in-person, small-group dialogues with boys and young men of color because they experience violence at disproportionately high rates. The third and final conversation was a much larger, virtual event open to all youth, featuring a dialogue with the mayor, breakout sessions on the city’s violence prevention plan, youth resource booths, youth performances and activities, prizes and incentives.

Youth attended the summit and touched on recurring themes across the three conversations.

• What they want: financial education, entrepreneurship opportunities, job training and jobs, mentorship and a relevant school curricula
• What they need: a clean city, to help reduce youth food insecurity and youth homelessness
• What they want to know: about Mayor Scott’s story and what it’s like to be mayor, what the city will do about gun violence and how they can be part of solutions

Event by the numbers

Engaging Opportunity Youth: Specifically Youth that Squeegee

In 2019, the Mayor’s Office of Children and Family Success (MOCFS) and the Mayor’s Office of African American Male Engagement (MOAAME) developed a support model for disrupting environments that encourage squeegee activity, while providing wraparound supports to youth.

 The Scott Administration has charged the collaborative with intensifying outreach efforts to squeegee youth while engaging business, community, and youth leaders to examine and reimagine our squeegee strategy. This charge is reflected in the Mayor’s 90-Day Squeegee Action Plan that convenes academic, business, community and faith leaders along with youth with lived experiences to develop a comprehensive plan to address the unique challenges facing boys and young men of color in Baltimore. The plan is expected to be released in Spring of 2022.

Youth Justice Action Month

Youth Justice Action Month (YJAM) is a national movement during the month of October to spotlight and advocate for youth justice. In Baltimore, structural racism and concentrated poverty create injustices for young people on every life front, every day—and lead to disproportionate rates of arrest and incarceration among youth of color. For three years, MOCFS has leveraged YJAM has been an opportunity to throw a light on youth justice in Baltimore, to lift youth voices on what justice looks like and to engage the broader community in the fight for youth justice.

Youth justice is when all we all thrive.

To mark YJAM this year, MOCFS partnered with the Youth Diversion workgroup of the Baltimore Children’s Cabinet. Together, we created a range of opportunities to engage with #YJAM2021—from Bmore on Youth Justice, a youth justice podcast on Spotify, to an awareness-building social media campaign @gothedistancebmore and a series of activities with city students to lift up youth voice on youth justice.

Just because October and YJAM are behind us doesn’t mean the fight for youth justice in Baltimore stops. We will continue to push for policy changes that make our city a more equitable and just place for young people to grow and thrive. And we need you to join us by writing our state lawmakers who are leading the push for juvenile justice reform to tell them why they must pass meaningful juvenile justice legislative during the 2022 session. Use this letter template to help get you started.

Mayor’s Backpack Giveaway

“It is crucial that we come together to support our young people. This is the kind of community-building and empowerment that defines Baltimore City.” – Mayor Brandon M. Scott

Enrollment is prioritized for families with the greatest need and for children with disabilities and/or those living in foster care or experiencing homelessness. BCHS is a leader having the highest number of children enrolled in the city amongst Head Start providers, is nationally recognized by the Office of Head Start with no findings on federal monitoring visits, and has implemented some of the best health and safety protocols to prevent COVID.

Program by the numbers

Prepaid Card Program

The City partnered with Open Society Institute, Baltimore’s Promise and a dozen community-based organizations to launch the $6 million COVID-19 relief initiative to ensure access to food and household goods for those city residents.

“The prepaid card program has provided critical support where structural inequities have created greater-than-ever disproportionate need during the pandemic.” - Mayor Brandon M. Scott

Program by the numbers

Rental Assitance and Evicton Prevention

Baltimore City continues to provide a range of supports to residents impacted by COVID-19, and among its larger relief efforts to date is the Baltimore City Eviction Prevention Program.

Each day across Baltimore’s five Baltimore City Community Action Partnership (CAP) centers, 50+ staff process applications for emergency rental assistance. The goal: to assist eligible tenants with getting current on their rent, avoiding eviction and staying in their homes.

Baltimore City is averting evictions and preventing homelessness for thousands of households—with thousands more to go.

To support tenant relocation, the Eviction Prevention Program provides case management services and security deposit payments. The goal: to disburse tens of millions of dollars over two years to assist eligible tenants with getting current on their rent, avoiding eviction and staying in their homes.

Program by the numbers

Free Food for Youth and Families

MOCFS and partners are providing free food boxes.

We’ve continued to apply for and receive additional state and federal funds since fall 2020, growing the program’s funding from $30 million to a current $98 million, spanning eight different funding sources.

A cross-agency team led by MOCFS leveraged hundreds of community, nonprofit, business and government partners; the city’s vast network of community-based programs and assets; and existing municipal infrastructure to meet the need of Baltimore families.

Program by the numbers

Trauma-Informed Care Task Force

Baltimore is the first United States city to legislate trauma-informed care. The Trauma-Informed Care Task Force ensures that delivery of services across all City agencies is trauma-informed. This year, Mayor Scott appointed members to the task force and on December 17, 2021, he announced an investment of $1.4 million from the American Rescue Act to support the City’s trauma informed care work. You can learn more about the Trauma-Informed Task Force by engaging in bi-weekly meetings streamed on YouTube (join the meetings here).

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