Two Fronts in the War on Poverty

Amid the problems, there are flickering signs of hope, many of which are being fanned by the community development corporation. The organization runs a transition program for newly released inmates, financial literacy programs for first-time home buyers, an after-school homework program, a program to foster understanding between black residents and Korean merchants, and even a Boy Scout troop. It also rents some of its space to a day-care center.

But its stock in trade is using government money to leverage other financing to renovate buildings for low- and moderate-income housing. Recently, the corporation bought an entire block of run-down alley homes, demolished them and built more than 50 townhouses with garages. They sold for $37,000 to $57,000, although the construction cost more than double that. "It is a short-term loss, but a long-term investment," Cornish said.

For years, those kinds of projects were not enough to hold back the tide of decline. But with housing prices spiraling across the region and crime slowly headed down in Druid Heights, there are signs of interest in the community. Recently, a two-family home in the neighborhood sold for $212,000 -- a once unheard-of sum.

Just as things are looking up, the federal money that is the lifeblood of the development corporation's work is in jeopardy. This year, $278,000 -- close to half of its already shrinking budget -- came from the imperiled community block grant program. Bush administration officials have said they targeted for cuts programs deemed ineffective. With Republicans controlling Congress and the White House, it also does not help that in many urban areas, community development corporations such as Druid Heights are identified with Democratic politics. Cornish is a former member of the Maryland Democratic State Central Committee. But she said her political affiliation is irrelevant to her work.

All she knows is that without federal money, the corporation would have to lay off some of its 10 staff members and stop much of its work. "You tell me," she said, "what is their measuring stick for effectiveness?"

Not far from Druid Heights, in a woebegone commercial strip, Sacred Zion does what it can to defeat some of the demons set loose by the city's enormous drug problem. An estimated 40,000 Baltimoreans -- nearly one in 15 residents -- are drug addicts, and the Rev. Bertha Greene has seen the fallout firsthand. Her son, Phillip L. Solomon, who was gay and a heroin addict, found out he was HIV-positive in 1989. He died in 2000 at age 40, but not before he had become a minister and Greene started her church, carving out a niche working with those with HIV or at high risk of getting the disease.

"I got to know some of my son's friends, and I became a person they could call on," Greene said. "They helped me realize that there are some great needs going unaddressed by the body of Christ." That insight led Greene to start Project ARISE -- Abstinence, Remembering, Instilling Pride, Self-worth and Education -- in 1999.

The program has received a big boost with the expansion of federal religion-based funding. This year, its budget includes a $249,000 federal grant, up from $105,000 last year. Outreach workers scour the streets to tell drug users about the project's HIV testing program and its counseling services that connect addicts with transitional housing, needle exchange and other resources. The program also teaches clients about safe sex, which leaves Greene conflicted because it requires her to sanction behavior she preaches against from the pulpit.

"Being a faith-based organization, it was an awkward place for us to be. We believe in abstinence," she said, explaining that the program has to meet clients "where they are."

Still, religious faith comes into play at Project ARISE. Staff members do not hesitate to pray for clients who request it. "I will say to my clients if they are feeling despair, 'God loves you, God made you special,' " said Edna Reynolds, the program's director.

Reynolds said she is hard pressed to say just how effective the program is. "I don't often get to see their success," she said of the clients. "But I feel we have to be here for them. When they leave here, I have to feel that we planted a seed with them."

The clients, who are saddled with AIDS, drug addiction, and their accompanying guilt and shame, describe the program as a godsend. Wanda A. Floyd, 38, fell victim to heroin in her early twenties. Her smooth, dark skin and straight, white teeth are still striking, despite the years of drug abuse and a decade of living with HIV.

She first stumbled into Sacred Zion with her husband more than a year ago in search of food. Since then, her husband has been murdered, leaving her alone to cope with the sad reality of her life: four children, HIV, no job and no friends outside the drug world. Now, she is looking to Sacred Zion for a residential drug treatment program.

"I only come here when I really, really need the assistance," she said. "They've been there for me spiritually. They are always telling me God loves me."