On Tuesday, Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, the wife of Rep. Elijah Cummings, took to Twitter to ask the public for help identifying the man who broke into the Cummings’ Baltimore home last month. Baltimore has suffered from the ills that have plagued many cities, including severe poverty, crime and homelessness.
These are serious problems. They deserve to be confronted by leaders who propose serious solutions. I am a businessman, not a politician. I don’t pretend to hold the answers to these social ills.
But speaking as someone who has for seven years provided safe, clean, decent housing for thousands of Baltimore families, I can tell you the one thing that absolutely won’t solve these problems is name-calling.
That’s especially true when the charges are totally false and leveled only to score political points rather than to tackle the very real problems faced by the good people of Baltimore.
A couple weeks ago, President Trump engaged in a bit of a spat with Rep. Cummings over conditions in Charm City. The next thing I knew, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a group of reporters, “Maybe you could ask his son-in-law, who is a slumlord there, if he wants to talk about rodent infestations.”
Pelosi was referring to the fact that my son — Jared Kushner, who now serves as the president’s senior adviser — was the CEO of our company during the period in which we made a major investment in Baltimore. Although Jared is no longer involved in the running of the company — and Speaker Pelosi knows it — I want to respond to her false and malicious insult.
Here are the facts.
In Baltimore County, Kushner Companies owns seven properties consisting of 4,469 apartment homes. In the city of Baltimore, we own two properties consisting of 803 apartments.
In the seven years we have owned the Baltimore County properties, we have received a total of 604 violations. More than a quarter of those were carbon-monoxide calls. This simply means that a carbon-monoxide detector has buzzed (usually due to a malfunction). Each time, we are required to hire a plumber to certify that no carbon monoxide is leaking into the apartment where the alert rang. This is totally normal for all apartment owners.
The remaining 433 violations are related to normal issues that arise in any project of this size. That means the chances of any one apartment having a violation in a year are 1 in 72 — an admirable standard for affordable housing.
An incorrect article that made the rounds a few years ago included allegations of “monetary sanctions that were threatened by the county” and claimed that there were 200 open violations.
In fact, every one of the 604 violations was corrected and cleared, and we currently have only two open violations. To our knowledge, we have no open Section 8 rent abatements.
Contrary to the “slumlord” slur, we have a positive and productive relationship with county inspectors, and we work with them to resolve any issues. Care to guess the total fines we’ve been assessed by the county in seven years of owning almost 4,500 apartments? The answer is $750.
In Baltimore proper, the story is just as compelling, even amid the serious challenges of providing safe, clean housing in any inner city. In seven years, we have received only 11 violations, all of which have been cleared. We currently have zero open violations on these assets. All Section 8 rents are currently being paid, with zero abatements. As with Baltimore County, we have a productive and positive relationship with Baltimore City inspectors.
Over the seven years we have owned these properties, Kushner has invested more than $30 million in capital improvements. That includes unit upgrades, roof replacements, sidewalk replacements, landscaping, playgrounds and various other items, all designed to make our properties — and Baltimore — a nicer place to live.
I invite Speaker Pelosi or any other politician to tour our properties in Baltimore any time. Anyone who has ever walked a Kushner property with me knows I’m not above grabbing a broom or picking up a cigarette butt to improve the experience for everyone who lives there.
Our goal remains exactly what it was before the political discussion took this nasty turn toward name-calling and baseless accusations. We’re providing clean, safe, affordable housing to more than 10,000 residents of Baltimore County and City. That’s a record I’m proud of. I hope our political leaders are proud of their own contributions.
Charles Kushner is the founder and principal of Kushner Companies.