Restorative justice advocates gathered in College Park’s Lakeland neighborhood July 20 to present a report urging the city to help the community improve education, transportation and housing.
Speakers recommended free college tuition, public transportation passes and compensation for homes lost during urban renewal in the 1960s and ’70s.
“It hasn’t just been about us going to archives, us looking up public records,” said Charkera Ervin, legal and policy director for the African American Redress Network (AARN), which conducted much of the research. “It’s been about talking to people who experienced the harm, people who live in Lakeland, people who knew exactly what was going on.”
Approximately three dozen Lakeland residents and supporters gathered to hear the report’s findings, which the speakers also presented to the College Park City Council on July 8.
The report, compiled by AARN and the Braxton Institute for Sustainability, Resilience and Joy with input from Lakelanders, community groups and institutions, details the history and impact of urban renewal on Lakeland. It focuses on four pillars aligned with the United Nations vision for sustainable urban communities: learning, housing, connectivity and nature.
The city hired AARN and Braxton in December to assist the College Park Restorative Justice Commission with historical research and policy recommendations. Urban development during renewal demolished 104 of Lakeland’s 150 homes.
The report, Restorative Justice for Lakeland: A Report of Historical Harms, Contemporary Impacts and Policies for Redress, is part of an ongoing city effort to restore the community.
“Lakeland has a different look and a different feel,” Keith Webster, a commission member and descendant of one of Lakeland’s original property owners, said. “Let’s resurrect the spirit of Lakeland, the Lakeland that we once knew.”
At the event, Ervin said displacement during urban renewal caused generational wealth loss.
Kayla Edwards-Scott, a contributing researcher, noted that since then, average Lakeland home values might have risen 1.76% annually. Spread across displaced families, the loss totals millions, Edwards-Scott said.
The report urges the city to cover the gap between what homeowners were paid and the market value at the time. Ervin said some families received as little as $1 for property worth more than $20,000.
Webster added that without urban renewal, “instead of losing two-thirds of our community, we would have expanded by 200-plus percent. … Incoming persons would have become family.”
Recommendations include documenting displaced homeowners and descendants to determine compensation eligibility and encourage them to return to the community; creating a “Lakeland Pass” for free or reduced public transit; adding Metrobuses and Shuttle-UM routes; offering University of Maryland scholarships to qualified residents; and improving local schools.
Audience member Violetta Sharps Jones, a fifth-generation Lakelander, said that even after moving away in the mid-1970s, Lakeland remains her home.
“I hope that is the spirit that we move forward with this report and know that we as Lakelanders have work to do that is up to us now; to continue this fight, to continue this journey,” Sharps Jones, vice president of the Lakeland Community Heritage Project, said.
Councilmember Susan Whitney (District 2), whose district includes Lakeland, said the report gives the city direction, but the power to push the council to act lies in the community “where it needs to be.”