Vocational students see opportunities in eyesores: 'I could fix that up'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK7ZNA6vrAA

Vocational students in Baltimore are rebuilding vacant houses, reports Hallie Miller in the Baltimore Banner. Their first house is on the market, and the second should be complete in a few months.

The idea dates to 2012, when a Carver Vocational-Technical High student complained to his baseball coach about the lack of job opportunities, and asked why he couldn't walk use the construction skills he was learning in school to rehab the blighted homes across the street. In 2020, the former student, Sterling Hardy, and the coach, Michael Rosenband, formed the Requity Foundation to teach trade skills and rebuild vacant houses. The nonprofit partners with Carver and other Baltimore public schools.

Justin Bellamy, 18, a 2025 Carver graduate, is now a Requity site manger while working on a degree in construction supervision and management at Baltimore City Community College. “I feel like I’m doing something meaningful,” he told Miller.

Jaden Hughes, a Carver senior and construction intern, said he's motivated by Requity’s “doing” mindset. He now looks at the city's many vacant homes "as opportunities, rather than eyesores," writes Miller. "Now he thinks: 'I could fix that up'.”

Requity has "added a culinary program to help feed the construction crews, and business and media internships that help promote and brand the works of their peers," she writes. The culinary students bring in some revenue by catering events, and "the business students sell their own merch — they hope to develop their own line of fashionable work pants with a built-in tool belt."

Requity graduates earn $47,800 in the workforce, the foundation reports. That's more than triple the earnings of Baltimore's other vocational graduates.

Years ago, I met Ohio vocational students who were rebuilding houses -- and transforming a low-income community. They took great pride in their work.