Baltimore’s Crime Crisis: Residents Demand Real Solutions
- Residents say safety and opportunity must come before political spin.
- Affordable housing, rec centers and lower taxes are repeated grassroots fixes.
- Opinions split on National Guard; many want long-term community investment.
BALTIMORE – While politicians debate how to combat crime in Baltimore, Maryland, local residents who spoke to Fox News Digital advocated for more affordable housing, recreational centers and accessible community resources.
Earlier this month, Gov. Wes Moore and Mayor Brandon Scott deployed the Maryland State Police and the Transportation Authority Police to partner with the Baltimore Police Department after President Donald Trump floated deploying the U.S. National Guard to crackdown on crime. The response from the street is blunt: politicians tout drops in statistics while people still see dealers, abandoned homes and kids with nowhere to go.
“We got so many kids getting into stuff and killing and on drugs, especially down here in this neighborhood on the Penn North,” Tasha, a young mother who spoke to Fox News Digital earlier this month while pushing her baby’s stroller through Baltimore’s Penn-North neighborhood, said. Her call for rec centers is simple and direct: kids need safe places, or they fall into crime.
Tasha said more kids need access to rec centers because “so many of them are getting hooked on drugs and caught up in things that they don’t got no business getting caught up in, all because they don’t have nothing else out here to do.” That line cuts through the rhetoric: prevention and opportunity beat press releases.
Fox News Digital spoke to more than a dozen Baltimore residents about how crime is impacting their community. While locals were split on whether Trump deploying the National Guard would curb crime, residents said safety concerns were top of mind.
More than two dozen people were hospitalized in a mass drug overdose event in Penn-North in July, and nearby Park Heights saw three out of the seven homicides in August. Those are not just numbers; they are the everyday reality people are living in.
Between people selling and using drugs on the corner as one police car was parked just down the street, Tasha said that in Penn-North, “everything is back out here running like it didn’t even happen a month ago.” Joseph, a resident, pointed out abandoned houses and buildings “all over the place,” underlining the vacancy problem that feeds crime.
But Trayvon, another Baltimore local, asked, “How can you fix a place and not fix the people?” He added, “If you fix that, all you’re going to do is make a prettier place to sell drugs,” which pushes the debate to deeper social fixes beyond aesthetics.
Scott Graham, a Republican who campaigned in 2022 for Maryland’s House of Delegates, blamed high property taxes for discouraging investment and leaving housing vacant in high-crime areas. Lower taxes, clearer enforcement and local investment in kids and jobs are the practical agenda people kept returning to.
Moore and Scott point to drops in homicides and shootings, but independent data still shows Baltimore’s murder rate far above national metro averages. The city needs both immediate enforcement options and long-term community-driven investments to restore safety and opportunity.
The 17 Baltimore locals who spoke to Fox News Digital were divided over the National Guard, with concerns about tensions and hopes for deterrence. In the end residents want what anyone wants: safer streets, better choices for kids and accountability from leaders who stop spinning and start fixing.
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