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Health & Fitness

Give Vacant Homes to City Employees to Live In

We should try to entice city employees to live here, not try and scare them here.

Give vacant homes away to city employees who agree to live in them.

Mayoral candidate Otis Rolley III states on his website:

"And under Rolley, all future or promoted city workers would have to live in the city. “You wouldn't work for Under Armour wearing somebody else’s apparel,” he said. “So, it’s more than reasonable for people to have that same respect and love and appreciation and support for the corporation that they are working for. If you are working in the city of Baltimore you should live in the city of Baltimore.”"

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I believe his intention is good, but I doubt he could implement the plan.  Others cities have tried with mixed results.

In fact, requiring employees to live in Baltimore City may be a detriment to attracting the best and the brightest to serve in city government.  After all, being forced to live in Baltimore City may be tantamount to torture to many.

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Instead of requiring employees to live in Baltimore City, I think a more productive and successful plan would be to give away vacant city owned houses to city employees who agree to live in the homes for as long as they work for Baltimore City, or at least for a designated number of years (perhaps 10 or so). 

The city could give the employees low interest loans to fix up the homes. 

If the goal is to attract public servants who make their money from city taxes to become part of the tax base, the best way is to entice them into moving into Baltimore City, not to try and scare them here. 

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