Former President Jimmy Carter speaks at the 2004 funeral in Wheaton for Matthew “Mattie” Stepanek, a 13-year-old boy who died after a lifelong battle with muscular dystrophy. Housing advocates credit Carter’s visits to the state with Habitat for Humanity for boosting home rehab efforts in Maryland. Photo by Bill O’Leary-Pool/Getty Images.
Sonia Street still vividly remembers the summer day in 1992 she met Jimmy Carter outside her West Baltimore home and he taught her how to hold a hammer.
The former president and his wife, Rosalynn, arrived in the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood wearing work clothes, anxious to begin rehabbing vacant row houses. It was the Carters’ second visit to Baltimore to promote Habitat for Humanity’s worldwide mission of revitalizing decaying communities.
“I worked side-by-side with Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn. He really inspired me, and he and his wife were mentors to me. I really enjoyed his company and him teaching me how to hold a hammer,” said Street, who still lives in the same house on North Gilmor Street.
With help from the Carters, her house was the first of hundreds either built or rehabbed in Sandtown-Winchester.
“We made a promise to each other, that since he came to my house, I could come to his house in Plains and get some of his peanuts,” said Street, a retired preschool teacher “So I did.”
With help from Habitat for Humanity, Street not only visited Georgia but became an ambassador for the nonprofit group, traveling with the Carters to Los Angeles, South Korea and Thailand.
Former Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke, the current president of the University of Baltimore, remembers accompanying the Carters on their Sandtown-Winchester visits.
“He wasn’t just supervising. He had a tool belt on, and he was hammering away in the buildings and was actively involved assisting the crew in rehabbing the house,” Schmoke recalled.
The former mayor also remembers Carter was not interested in small talk with the many elected officials who showed up. “He said he wanted to focus on rehabbing homes and encouraging folks in Sandtown to work with Habitat for Humanity to help revive the community,” Schmoke said.
Nonprofit groups like Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD) and the Enterprise Foundation had already begun projects to rehab vacant houses in Sandtown-Winchester. But Schmoke says Carter’s partnership with Habitat for Humanity gave a huge boost to those projects.
During his 1992 visit, Carter was not shy about criticizing the housing policies of then-President George H.W. Bush, telling reporters during a break that federal funding for low-income housing had dropped precipitously under the first Bush administration.
John Best, a longtime Habitat employee, helped coordinate the former president’s visits to Sandtown-Winchester.
“Jimmy Carter was a man of faith, and I knew all of this grew out of that,” Best recalled. “He was a skilled carpenter and a peanut farmer before he was president. He had a good farm, and it was very successful. I was so blessed by the community opening their arms to us coming in there.”
Best credits the Carters’ highly publicized visits with helping to recruit thousands of volunteers. Habitat officials says that more than 300 homes in 15 square blocks in Sandtown-Winchester were either built from the ground up or rehabbed, some of the more than 800 homes it has worked on in Central Maryland. Major corporations and banks donated money and supplies to accelerate the redevelopment project.
Best, who was Habitat’s senior construction manager, says once the former president began rehab work inside a house, he could be “prickly” at times.
“If he was focused on a project, he didn’t want you asking him questions. He wanted to work and get it done,” he said.
Mike Posko, CEO of Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake, says the organization is still actively involved in rehabbing houses not only in Sandtown-Winchester but in Curtis Bay, Pigtown and in East Baltimore. He called Carter’s impact on their ongoing work “priceless.”
“Just the value that he added to bring other volunteers out and churches out and other companies that wanted to be part of the mission,” Posko said. “It’s been outstanding.”
After a long day’s work rehabbing row houses, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter attended a celebratory worship service at Baltimore’s New Shiloh Baptist Church. Street, who was there, remembers the former president also delivered the sermon.
“He told us to be hopeful and keep the faith,” she said. “I thank God Jimmy Carter came here and helped me out to build my house, because I’m grateful for it.”
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