Arica Gonzalez

For Arica Gonzalez and her neighbors, hope started with a gate. Baltimore City officials allowed the residents to lease and gate the alley shared by 50 homes of her Panway neighborhood. With feral cats and rats, trash and abandoned cars, drug-dealing, and vacant houses, the alley symbolized a crumbling neighborhood structure.

“The city was asking us if we were willing to take control of this space we call home,” says Gonzalez.  “Our answer was a resounding yes.” Now the alley is a welcoming greenspace, and the project, called The Urban Oasis, has become a model of how residents can spearhead structural revitalization initiatives in their community.

With major infrastructural improvements underway, “community now looks like gates, string-lights, brick pavers, and land donated. It looks like teenagers picking up trash, mowing lawns, designing murals and planting gardens. It looks like Sunday Dinner with an entire street of neighbors,” says Gonzalez. These structural improvements have been the first step in the vision for a self-sustained, wealth-generating, restorative community model.

The Howard University graduate is the Founder and Executive Director of The Urban Oasis, a resident-created and led organization that started with $100 and is now pushing forward a multi-million-dollar transformative community plan. Gonzalez shares her vision for the neighborhood in this video and speaks to inspire other civic groups and offer lessons learned in activating her long-neglected community.