About CHB


Come Home Baltimore

is a privately funded Initiative that is rebuilding Baltimore’s inner city neighborhoods by developing “better than new” market rate housing, fostering forward thinking, sustainable community development, and encouraging real grassroots social change by collaborating with likeminded for and non-profit organizations.

Come Home Baltimore’s for and non-profit arms.

The Come Home Baltimore Fund, our for-profit building arm, acquires neglected and abandoned houses and transforms them in to “better than new” homes.

We reconstruct and sell fully renovated, luxurious, energy efficient homes with a list of amenities that is awe inspiring. Our homes are customized to the specifications of each new buyer and come with 10year home warranties standard. Not only does Come Home Baltimore build and sell amazing homes, we also make them uncommonly easy to own. From day one, our Home Ownership Specialists work with you to quickly and easily get you prequalified for financing, identify and procure tax incentives and grants, and ultimately get you into the home of your dreams.

To find out more about owning a Home in Oliver, contact Karim Harried, CHB Home Ownership Specialist. Email



The Come Home Baltimore Foundation, our non-profit building arm, is committed to building community.

It takes a village to raise a child, our former First Lady and now Secretary of State famously wrote, and who could argue with that? We do argue, however, over whether responsibility for the nitty-gritty of that village child-raising rests first and foremost with the residents themselves or with some Department of Village Affairs. We argue, in other words, over the extent to which government can or should take the lead in social initiatives. But wherever we stand in that abstract debate, we all also ask — secretly, hopefully — whether something like the spontaneous and self-renewing energy of the community members themselves can exist in the real world, or whether such things are limited to the fanciful realm of proverb.

In Oliver, we have the answer. An integral part of the Come Home Baltimore Initiative is to induce area social service nonprofits to devote resources to Oliver, to locate a facility in or near Oliver and, most essential, to welcome and to actually prize community volunteers. We hope to create an abundance of opportunities to lend a hand: in schools, in clinics, among the elderly; in gardens, in community centers, and on street corners.

To find out more about The Come Home Baltimore Foundation, contact Earl Johnson, Executive Director – The Come Home Baltimore Foundation. Email


More information about Come Home Baltimore

The COME HOME BALTIMORE FUND utilizes the natural resources of an undervalued, underappreciated community in the transformation of urban neighborhoods. COME HOME BALTIMORE is the brainchild of entrepreneur/green activist and Baltimore native, David Borinsky [link], and of Earl Johnson [link],, a Special Ops veteran recently returned from combat deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

COME HOME BALTIMORE seeks to:

  • Develop a replicable/profitable program that leads to a low-crime, economically integrated neighborhood with no displacement of longtime residents
  • Direct a cadre of skilled/committed rehabbers
  • Utilize high-quality yet affordable green building practices
  • Restore “sustainable,” child- and elderly-friendly neighborhoods to city tax rolls

COME HOME BALTIMORE’s contractors and construction managers have mastered sustainable renovation equipment and materials. Each individual rehabilitation incorporates high-quality green building practices and materials for dozens of previously boarded-up rowhomes. Standard green features include: spring-form insulation, energy efficient windows and high efficiency heating systems. Critically important as well is that the green buildings enhance indoor air quality and lower utility costs.

Because COME HOME BALTIMORE has expanded the concept of “green building” beyond small-scale renovation, it has also necessitated the utilization of “outside-the-box” resources: city planners, community leaders, government officials, etc. A commitment to resident participation involves constant interaction with the community.

Concurrent with the rehabilitation of individual rowhomes, COME HOME BALTIMORE works with churches, veterans groups and other community leaders to engage residents, area college students and other stakeholders. Priorities include encouraging previous residents, or those with other family ties to the area, to “come home” by purchasing a newly rehabbed dwelling.

Priorities also include supporting afterschool and other educational programs, supporting the creation of public “green spaces”/community gardens, and encouraging planning for an Aging-in-Place program for elderly residents. We have asked city planners to contribute innovative solutions for infrastructure management and efficient infrastructure development. The consequent “sustainable” neighborhood growth contributes to the city tax coffers, provides training for formerly unemployed residents and creates value for existing homeowners.

With all that, the transformation that is beginning to take place in Oliver is also the result of solid planning and financing. Currently, banks are not lending money for small scale development in urban neighborhoods—the financial marketplace is closed. COME HOME BALTIMORE has found a solution to this problem. Its equity investors are impressed with the quick turnaround of its houses, and continue to lend their financial support as COME HOME BALTIMORE salvages some of Baltimore’s best real estate.