National Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference in Baltimore on September 28-30, 2016 (Press Release)

BALTIMORE – The seventh national Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference will come to Baltimore, Maryland, on September 28-30, 2016, announced the Center for Community Progress, a national nonprofit and host of the event. The conference will be held at the Hilton Baltimore at 401 W. Pratt St., and is expected to draw approximately 1,000 professionals to the city.

The conference’s 60+ sessions will highlight work from dozens of cities and states, including efforts in Baltimore. Topics to be addressed include the reuse of buildings and land, code enforcement, land banking, demolition, arts and placemaking, property tax systems, inclusiveness and justice, and more. Themed “In Service of People and Place,” the conference will explore how efforts to reclaim vacant properties can benefit residents and the places they call home.

Conference registration, agenda, sessions, sponsors, and other details are available at www.reclaimingvacantproperties.org. Registration closes September 21, 2016.

Plenary speakers include:

• The Honorable Dan Kildee, U.S. House of Representatives (MI-05)
• Matthew Desmond, John L. Loeb associate professor of social sciences at Harvard University, MacArthur “Genius,” and best-selling author of Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City.
• The Honorable Tom Barrett, Mayor of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; The Honorable Muriel Bowser, Mayor of Washington, D.C.; The Honorable Jamie Mayo, Mayor of Monroe, Louisiana; The Honorable Lester E. Taylor, III, Mayor of East Orange, New Jersey; The Honorable Karen Weaver, Mayor of Flint, Michigan
• Young leaders from New Lens, a youth-driven, social justice-focused arts and media organization in Baltimore’s Reservoir Hill neighborhood

Held every eighteen months, the Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference is the sole national conference dedicated to helping communities find solutions for vacant, abandoned, tax-delinquent, and other problem properties. It attracts and connects professionals from many interrelated fields, including community development, urban policy, code enforcement, municipal law, affordable housing, land banking, urban planning, economic development, and public safety.

“We’re excited to showcase work in Baltimore and from around the country at the 2016 Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference,” said Tamar Shapiro, president and CEO of the Center for Community Progress. “No other national conference digs so deeply into how communities can reclaim and revitalize their blighted properties. This year’s gathering has a special focus on ensuring those efforts benefit residents.”

About Center for Community Progress

Founded in 2010, the Center for Community Progress is the only national nonprofit organization solely dedicated to building a future in which entrenched, systemic vacancy, abandonment, and blight no longer exist in American communities. The mission of Community Progress is to ensure that communities have the vision, knowledge, and systems to transform blighted, vacant, and other problem properties into assets supporting neighborhood vitality. As a national leader on solutions for blight and vacancy, Community Progress serves as the leading resource for local, state, and federal policies and best practices that address the full cycle of property revitalization.