We need to help people get to work, literally.

There are thousands of available jobs throughout the greater metropolitan area that unemployed people in the city can’t take without the personal transportation they need to get to work.  They don’t own a car and can’t qualify prospectively for the financing they can afford now that they are working.  (Credit approval for new car purchases is a retrospective process based on your credit history – and that’s something we need to change.)  Commuting into the suburbs by bus and/or rail isn’t an option.  Buying an older used car, without a long-term warranty, is an expensive and ill-advised alternative.  Many unemployed people need an affordable new car – or late model used car, just 2 or 3 years old, protected by a manufacturer’s or franchise dealer warranty.

A well-equipped new car, fully warranted by the manufacturer, can cost as little as $150/month.  It’s affordable, but only to buyers with reasonably good credit.  To deliver these vehicles to the newly employed, we need to put one or more new car dealerships right in the heart of the city’s high unemployment neighborhoods – dealerships that will create jobs and that will provide affordable new cars and financing to people who can find work, wherever those jobs may be, if only they have the personal transportation to get there.

See the title of this post?  That’s the question.

If Baltimore Rising were to bring a new car dealership to the city of Baltimore – put it smack dab inside one of the city’s struggling, high unemployment neighborhoods, staffed locally from top to bottom, selling and leasing affordable new cars to families who need cars to get to jobs around the city and in the suburbs – where exactly would you put that dealership?

Please leave a comment or email your suggestion to Info@BaltimoreRising.org.

Thanks.