Parity Homes, a nonprofit based in West Baltimore, Maryland, is challenging conventional development models. While revitalizing abandoned homes and preserving their historical integrity is complex and often overlooked, Bree Jones, the founder and CEO, emphasizes that “that’s the easy part.” What truly sets Parity apart—its “special sauce,” says Bree, is its focus on restoring the social fabric of the community. Bree and her team work to strengthen relationships and build camaraderie “because that is what truly makes a neighborhood.”
In 2020, Bree founded Parity to demonstrate that contrary to the popular narrative, there was actually an immense demand and desire for homeownership opportunities in the “Black Butterfly,” the predominately Black neighborhoods of East and West Baltimore. She committed to showcasing the unique potential of these spaces and the desire of residents to make these communities their home. Rich in history and culture, West Baltimore features a vibrant social fabric, architecturally distinctive homes, and generous green space—assets often left out and threatened by conventional development models. The area has played a pivotal role in civil rights activism and celebration of Black culture. Parity’s vision is to reveal this beauty and demonstrate the neighborhood’s potential as both a viable market and a thriving, connected community.
Instead of rehabbing one house at a time, Parity innovatively buys and rehabs whole blocks in distressed areas. They recruit groups of new owners who are already socially connected— families, neighbors, friends— who are motivated to buy-in as a collective and move in simultaneously. They bring their own social capital with them, creating not just blocks of attainable homeownership, but blocks of connected communities. Community members, who may have otherwise been priced out of the development process, also have an opportunity to participate.
However, recognizing the potential for community-led renewal in West Baltimore is not to underestimate the challenges in revitalizing historically Black neighborhoods. Interwoven into Baltimore’s history are decades of racially biased policies and practices, including redlining, racial covenants, and steering, denying Black families access to homeownership and severely limiting investment in Black-majority neighborhoods. Additionally, the city has faced substantial population decline, initially driven by white families moving to the suburbs and later exacerbated by the loss of industrial jobs.
As a result of ongoing population loss, the city has grappled with an exceedingly high rate of unoccupied homes, a phenomenon known as hyper-vacancy. In 1990, 7.5% of the city’s census tracts experienced hyper-vacancy; this figure surged to 29.5% by 2010. As of 2022, approximately 15,000 residential properties remained vacant, a figure that has consistently hovered between 7% and 8% of Baltimore’s housing stock for over a decade. This high rate of vacancy contributes to devaluation and displacement, perpetuating cycles of disinvestment.
The hyper-vacancy and devaluation in Baltimore have sparked a surge in redevelopment initiatives, with the City or private developers tearing down both vacant and occupied homes to make way for new residential (often single-family homes) and commercial developments. However, the benefits of this redevelopment are often unequally distributed, reinforcing cycles of disinvestment and displacement. New single-family homes frequently price out low- and medium-income families. Rising land costs, material expenses, and regulatory requirements contribute to the inflated prices of these new homes, driving up property values. As a result, lower-income residents may struggle to afford increasing rents or property taxes, leaving them with fewer options to remain in their communities. In some instances, residents are forcibly displaced from their homes to accommodate new developments.
In contrast, Bree’s approach with Parity Homes challenges the profit-driven, displacement-prone strategies common in many cities. It represents a fundamental shift in who invests in disinvested neighborhoods, i.e. collectives instead of individuals, community members instead of outside developers— and in what they buy, i.e. connected neighborhoods as opposed to individual homes.
Parity focuses on creating affordable homeownership opportunities through what Bree calls a “collective economics” approach. This strategy leverages the shared goals or interests of a group to achieve economic benefits for everyone involved. In doing so, it changes the market dynamics that go beyond simply improving efficiencies or achieving economies of scale. “Acquiring properties on a strategic block by block basis is critical,” emphasizes Bree. “We have to make sure we are not simply getting a homebuyer into a newly renovated house while the house next door remains vacant.” Neighborhoods with many vacant or run-down buildings impose heightened risks and costs on nearby homeowners, from driving down property values to spreading pest infestations. By moving into a block collectively, each Parity homeowner mitigates these risks and costs for their neighbors.
Bree’s team first stabilizes the homes by addressing foundational issues, such as caved-in walls, roof repairs, and reinstallation of sewer lines— critical work after years of deferred maintenance and disinvestment. Homebuyers can then pre-purchase the unrehabilitated homes with just a $5,000 down payment and an escrow account, moving in only after Parity has fully rehabilitated the properties.
Parity works closely with its homebuyers, sometimes over several years, to help them build their savings, improve their credit, and achieve a debt-to-income ratio that qualifies them for a mortgage. Bree’s team offers an eight-week training program for prospective buyers where they work closely with Parity’s Director of Homebuyer Success to become mortgage-ready. They also spend time with their future neighbors to foster camaraderie, learn to be mindful of different lived experiences, and discuss the value of civic engagement.
As of 2023, Parity successfully moved new homeowners into its first two fully rehabilitated homes, demonstrating the demand for homeownership and community even in Baltimore’s hardest-hit communities. Building on this success, Parity now has five additional homes under construction, all slated for completion by the end of 2024, and it is beginning to pre-sell homes for 2025.
“At this stage, we are focused on scaling our efforts by increasing our financial capacity to build more homes simultaneously,” says Bree, “For the first time in our organization’s history, we are exploring low-interest lines of credit to support this growth.”
Access to capital is critical to this model’s success. “Baltimore has 15,000 vacant properties,” says Bree. “There’s inventory, but much of it requires substantial capital investment.” Without a working line of capital, Parity is currently limited to rehabilitating one house at a time, though Bree aims to scale capacity up to twenty homes by raising a small $1.5M social impact fund. The team is also exploring expansion into nearby neighborhoods and application of their model in other cities with high vacancy rates, like Cleveland and Detroit.
In recent years, housing prices nationwide have skyrocketed. Before the pandemic, rehabilitating a home in West Baltimore cost Parity around $180,000. Now, post-pandemic, that cost has risen to approximately $350,000. Rising interest rates have also significantly diminished the buying power of Parity’s homebuyers, with each 1% increase in interest reducing buying power by about $30,000. “This puts us in a challenging situation. Construction costs are extremely high, yet our sales prices must remain low to maintain affordability amidst these high interest rates,” Bree notes.
The macroeconomic conditions often keep Bree up at night, but her team is already taking steps to bridge the gap. For example, Parity is rehabilitating historic 3,000-square-foot row houses, which are too large and costly for a single income to support. To address this, Parity is converting these homes into two units, allowing owners to retain full ownership while renting out one unit for additional income. Alternatively, as Bree suggests, they can co-purchase with a parent, friend, or cousin, enabling multiple incomes to support the overall cost of the home. “The beauty of social capital is that it’s free,” says Bree, “You don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to create it.”
Valuing Homes in Black Communities
Homes in Black majority neighborhoods are undervalued by 23% on average compared to similar homes in other neighborhoods. Structural innovations that redesign our markets could create a more equitable housing market. To support new ideas, Economic Architecture and Brookings are mapping innovations across the US and invite innovators to step forward and apply to the Valuing Homes in Black Communities Challenge.