When the Archdiocese of Baltimore sold two buildings that belonged to one of its parishes in April, the move didn’t just signal a new chapter in the church’s plan to realign its operations in the city. It reflected an emerging trend in real estate that shows no signs of abating.

America’s oldest Catholic diocese sold one administration and one school building at Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Bolton Hill to a charter school in April. It marked the first time the archdiocese had sold properties as part of Seek the City to Come, the consolidation plan by which it slashed the number of parishes in, and near, the city from 61 to 23 last year.

With commitment to organized religion still in decline in the United States, the transaction was no rarity.

About 4,500 of the country’s 350,000 Christian congregations close every year, while roughly  3,000 open, according to Lifeway Research, a nonprofit that tracks patterns in the church. An estimated 100,000 are expected to be shuttered within a generation. The trend is making countless religious buildings obsolete. And faith leaders are increasingly faced with the question of what to do with them.

Thousands have already been sold and converted to other uses in the U.S. and beyond. Buyers enamored of such unique design elements as vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows and historic charm are turning former houses of worship into community centers, condominium complexes, restaurants, and private homes.

An hour’s drive around Baltimore alone yields glimpses of a 19th-Century Presbyterian church building that became a vintage clothing store (Hunting Ground in Hampden, now closed); an Evangelical Lutheran church erected in 1906 that is now a boutique apartment community (The Hamlet Lofts, Highlandtown); a Catholic church dating to 1889 that is now a yoga studio (Sanctuary Body, Fells Point), and perhaps most famously, a former Catholic church that developers turned into a brewpub and restaurant (the Ministry of Brewing, Upper Fells Point).

“I don’t believe God is going away or leaving us, or even that people don’t want spiritual depth,” said the Rev. Mark Elsdon, the editor of “Gone for Good? Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition,” a book on the phenomenon published last year. “But they don’t do it by showing up in large numbers on Sunday and putting money in the plate like they did in the 1950s. It’s a time of change in Americans’ spiritual lives, and it’s showing up as a significant sector of the real estate market.”

A significant moment

A few faith traditions can claim to be growing in the U.S. Muslims, Orthodox Jews and conservative Christian denominations such as the Presbyterian Church of America and the Anglican Church in North America are experiencing gains.

But the overall arrow still points downward. The number of Americans who identify as Christians fell from 72% to 66% over the past ten years, a loss of about 15 million adults. As of 2020, more than 100 million Americans said they had no religious affiliation, a 97% plunge since 2010.

And even Americans who call themselves religious are worshipping in churches and synagogues less often. The trend away from physical buildings spiked during the Covid-19 pandemic, when bans on public gatherings prompted faith leaders to create remote services.

About 27% of religious Americans were still attending church online remotely as of 2023, according to Pew Research Center.

That and other factors, including soaring maintenance costs, are forcing faith leaders to confront a crucial question: how importantare the buildings where we once worshipped?

“More and more people are coming to the conclusion, ‘a church is not a building; it’s the people in the congregation,'” said Stephen Ferrandi, co-owner of PraiseBuildings Religious Property Brokerage, one of the most active firms in the mid-Atlantic for religious real estate transactions.

Elsdon is the co-founder of RootedGood, a Wisconsin nonprofit that supports faith-based leaders who are interested in developing properties for broad community use.

“I think it’s a very significant social moment,” Elsdon said. “If we don’t realize it and act now, we’re going to wake up 20 years from now and say, ‘Where are the community centers? Where’s the affordable housing? We had them. They were called churches.”

Where the market is

Ferrandi saw a movement taking shape years ago. He was with a commercial firm in the 1990s when he says he began meeting religious leaders in search of land for new churches.

He soon began mastering the peculiarities of the niche houses-of-worship market — owners who are sad to sell, zoning and landmark issues, parking-lot possibilities, the question of how to adapt church-shaped structures to new uses.

In 2015, he and a partner, Barbara Brindon, established Praise Buildings, one of several subsidiaries of the EA Commercial Real Estate, the firm they run in Ellicott City.

Praise Buildings has brokered 78 religious property transactions in the region in 10 years, a number Ferrandi calls “jaw-dropping.” Sixteen were valued at more than $900,000. (The priciest was the sale of Rainbow Hall, a former residence of General Douglas MacArthur and a onetime Baptist home, to Bais Medrash, an Owings Mills synagogue, for $4.2 million.)

“The last three or four years, the church brokerage accounts for about 75 percent of our revenue,” Ferrandi said. “It’s unheard of, but that’s where the market is. The church market is exploding.”

And that’s not only in Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., the jurisdictions EA Commercial serves.

LoopNet, an online marketplace for commercial real estate, currently shows more than 1,200 churches or religious facility properties for sale in 48 states, with 365 listed at $1 million or more. CityFeet.com, another online marketplace, lists 35 such properties for sale in Maryland. LoopNet lists 15 in Baltimore.

The costliest in the state — a 130,000-square-foot building in Silver Spring that once housed a seminary — is listed at $28,000,000; the most affordable is a former Evangelical Lutheran church in Sharpsburg that was built in 1942 and renovated in 2020 ($325,000).

The realtors for both suggest they’re ideal for business purposes.

Sanctuary

It’s hard to know whether any single denomination has been selling more than others, but Ferrandi says he has represented Episcopalians, United Methodists, Catholics and more in roughly equal measure, with mainline Protestant denominations generally in the lead.

Perhaps because it has clear canonical regulations around the dispensation of buildings, the Catholic Church keeps better records than most.

The Baltimore archdiocese has closed 30 churches over the past 90 years, according to its website. Twelve that became churches in other denominations are still in use.

But with attendance still declining across traditions, Elsdon says the trend of churches buying churches is becoming less feasible. That has proven the case in Baltimore, where more former houses of worship are being turned to commercial or private use.

Hampden Presbyterian Church, a sturdy granite structure built on Falls Road in the 1870s, housed a congregation whose membership foundered a century later. New owners bought the place in 2011, returned it to its original footprint, and reopened it as the Hunting Ground boutique. It closed in 2024 after 13 years.

St. Stanislaus Kostka Roman Catholic Church on South Ann Street, established in the 1880s, served as the religious and social hub of the Polish community in Fells Point for more than a century. After it was closed in 2000, new owners renovated the Romanesque brick building, preserving its interior arches, much of its stained glass, and paintings of saints. The details enhance the zenlike, light-filled decor of Sanctuary Body, which opened to fitness enthusiasts in 2013.

Ernst Valery and his business partner, David Wendell, had a similar plan in mind when they bought the former St. Michael the Archangel Roman Catholic Church in 2011.

Built in the 1850s to serve the city’s German population, St. Michael’s included a rectory, two school buildings, a convent, and a brothers’ residence in its complex at Lombard and Wolfe streets in Butchers Hill.

Valery, a real estate developer who specializes in adaptive reuse, lived nearby at the time. He remembers lamenting the absence of a space where families could gather.

He and Wendell bought the property in part because it had served just such a purpose for generations. They retained its most striking church-specific elements to help preserve its profile as a sanctuary, if a nonreligious one.

Some have questioned their pairing of sacred and secular, Valery says — the former altar itself holds steel vats for beer production — but its previous owner, the fathers of the Redemptorist order, decided the plan was in keeping with their charism, which involves reaching out to those who feel alienated from the church and society.

That made it an acceptable “profane,” or secular, use of the property, not the “sordid” use barred by canon law.

To Valery, the Ministry of Brewing is a place where people can connect, play board games, and enjoy each other’s company in an unhurried environment.

“It’s a place where community is built, which is the original intent of the church,” the self-described lapsed Catholic said. “We think of it as the neighborhood den.”

Properties for sale

The Archdiocese of Baltimore consulted with parishioners, held town halls and worked with consultants to determine how best to shrink its footprint in Baltimore as part of Seek the City. The final version, released in March 2024, called for eliminating 38 parishes.

Most ceased offering Sunday mass in December and remain open only for special sacraments.

Archdiocese spokesman Christian Kendzierski said church leaders will decide the buildings’ fates over time. Proceeds from all sales will go to the newly formed parish to which each belongs.

The sale of the Corpus Christi buildings, which netted $1.93 million, is the only one completed so far, but the archdiocese says five parishes and another building are on the market. Each one listed is valued at more than $1.3 million. LoopNet lists a seventh at $438,000.

With Seek the City’s final phase under way, Kendzierski said, the archdiocese is “negotiating sales with interested parties.” Potential buyers include religious organizations and charter schools. And that’s in keeping with what most religious sellers hope.

“These properties have been beneficial for the surrounding communities,” he said. “We want them to stay that way.”

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

Archdiocese of Baltimore properties currently on the market

• Shrine of the Little Flower, 3500 Belair Road, Belair-Edison. List price: $1.75 million.
• St. Rose of Lima Catholic Church, 3803 4th Street, Brooklyn. List price: $1.39 million.
• St. Elizabeth of Hungary Roman Catholic Church, 2700 E. Baltimore Street, Patterson Park. Price not listed.
• St. Thomas Aquinas Church, 3700 Roland Ave., Hampden. Price not listed.
• Most Precious Blood, 5010 Bowleys Lane,  Northeast Baltimore. Price not listed.
• St. Francis Xavier Dismas Center, 1427 North Caroline Street, East Baltimore Midway. List price: $1.4 million.
• St. Gregory the Great, 1542 North Gilmor Street, Sandtown-Winchester. List price: $438,000.

On both occasions, their testimony was so graphic it drew gasps and sobs from the gallery at the Edward A. Garmatz U.S. District Courthouse. Many described the opportunity to go public as crucial to their healing process.

Now three insurance companies employed by the archdiocese are asking the court to bar any further such hearings.

Federal Insurance Company, Indemnity Insurance Company of North America, and Westchester Fire Insurance Company, all subsidiaries of the Chubb Corporation, have filed a motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the District of Maryland that would prevent any more survivors in the case from speaking in open court about what the priests and other archdiocese employees did to them and how the trauma of the acts has damaged their lives.

Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, lambasted the motion at a news conference in front of the courthouse on West Lombard Street on Wednesday.

“Why would insurance companies want to block the truth from being heard?” asked Teresa Lancaster, an Annapolis attorney and a survivor of abuse at the hands of the late Rev. Joseph Maskell, then a priest of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, in the early 1970s.

“We call on these companies to show compassion and human decency. We urge them to allow and listen to this essential testimony and recognize the ongoing impact of this abuse, which lasts a lifetime,” she said.

Frank Schindler, an official with Maryland’s SNAP chapter, said that while most bankruptcy proceedings focus on “assets, liability, dollar signs and reorganization,” this one has another consideration: the well-being of victims whose lives have been traumatized by abuse.

“The insurance companies and the church would like to silence the survivors so that they can hide behind cold statistics,” said Schindler, also a survivor of clergy sexual abuse. “This [bankruptcy proceeding] is about a powerful institution backed by powerful attorneys and insurance companies who are trying to abrogate their responsibility for committing serious crimes against children.”

A creditors committee representing more than 1,000 survivors in the case filed a motion in April asking U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Michelle M. Harner, who is overseeing the matter, for permission to hold a hearing that would include survivor statements.

In a motion they filed July 23, attorneys for the companies argued that “victim statements are a creature of criminal procedure,” not criminal procedure itself.

Bankruptcy is a civil legal process in which individuals or businesses seek relief from overwhelming debt.

The lawyers also cited a decision by the judge in the bankruptcy case of the Archdiocese of New Orleans to disallow “victim statements” on the grounds that such testimony could “taint the court as a finder of fact.”

The Archdiocese of Baltimore filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Sept. 29, 2023, days before a new state law, the Child Victims Act, could take effect that would expose the organization to hundreds if not thousands of sexual abuse claims.

Victims in such cases are permitted to describe on the record what they remember being done to them, a process survivors say can be crucial to their recovery because it allows them to unburden themselves of secrets they have often kept out of shame and because it represents a kind of formal acknowledgement few have ever received.

A handful of victims have shared their stories within the proceedings.

Last March, Harner granted a request by the committee representing the survivors to allow victims to speak for two hours during “status conferences” on April 8 and May 20 of last year.

The church supported the idea, and Archbishop William E. Lori attended both sessions.

“It’s important for me and for church leaders continually to hear from victim-survivors about what happened in their life and what that brought about in their lives,” he told the church-published Catholic Review for an article at the time. “I also think it’s a moment when victim-survivors experience a moment of empowerment and justice. And I think their testimonies will have a big impact on my mind and heart and on the proceedings that are to follow.”

Lancaster said the committee had to file the April motion to get a third such hearing scheduled. She now expects the court to have to schedule a new hearing to deal with the insurance companies’ objections.

“Delay, delay, delay — whatever Lori says, that’s been their strategy all along,” Lancaster said.

The archdiocese did not return requests for comment in time for the publication of this story.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

In a statement Wednesday, Moore, a Democrat, said that the flooding, which caused evacuations in Garret and Allegany counties after Georges Creek overflowed following three days of extreme rainfall, “clearly met disaster assistance criteria” under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

The floods occurred between May 12 and May 14. Moore requested disaster assistance June 13.

In an email to The Baltimore Sun on Wednesday, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said that Trump responds to each request for assistance under the Stafford Act with “great care and consideration, ensuring American tax dollars are used appropriately and efficiently by the states to supplement — not substitute, their obligation to respond to and recover from disasters.”

“While the President’s decisions are communicated directly to the Governor of an affected State, the Trump administration remains committed to empowering and working with State and local governments to invest in their own resilience before disaster strikes, making response less urgent and recovery less prolonged,” Jackson wrote.

In an email to The Baltimore Sun Thursday, a FEMA spokesperson said that the agency follows the regulations of the Stafford Act to determine the necessity of federal assistance, and, in this case, worked closely collect and analyze the damage.

“The law and regulations require FEMA to review each request closely and consider the unique circumstances of disaster-caused damages as well as state and local capacity,” they said. “This decision just like all disaster requests was based on policy not politics.”

Since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, FEMA has denied eight requests for disaster declarations. That does not include Maryland’s request that Trump denied on Wednesday.

Upon returning to office, Trump said that FEMA should be eliminated and that states should be more responsible for their own disaster relief. In January, he issued an executive order establishing a committee to assess the recommended structural changes for the agency.

The Washington Post reported earlier this month that the president is retreating from the idea of abolishing FEMA after he visited Texas, which was ravaged by floods that killed more than 130 people, including dozens of children at a religious summer camp.

‘We did meet the threshold’

State Sen. Mike McKay, a Republican whose District 1 covers parts of Garrett, Allegany and Washington counties, said the news came as “a gut punch” for Allegany, one of the state’s poorest counties.

McKay learned of the denial at a Zoom meeting at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, he said, and the presentation included only an executive summary, so he wasn’t familiar with all its details.

As disappointing as the news was, he said he hopes the full report will include a clear explanation of why the county’s application fell short and what civic leaders and citizens can do to reverse the decision.

“We firmly believe we did meet the threshold to meet the FEMA requirements. We need to find out why we were found not (eligible) for these funds. This was like seeing grades on a website. We may have failed the grade, but we want to find out what the next test is, what we didn’t do right, and how we can do better next time.”

McKay said he was on the phone with the governor’s office this morning, and the Moore administration sounds determined to help in case there’s an appeals process.

“The governor’s care and attention has been flawless throughout this natural disaster,” he said. “We’re going to find a way to turn that denial into a smile.”

The state provided financial assistance to Allegany County in the wake of the floods — $459,375 from the State Disaster Recovery Fund, and $1 million through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

“We will continue to stand with our fellow Marylanders in Western Maryland as they rebuild from the damage caused in May,” said Moore.

Assessments performed by FEMA, the Maryland Department of Emergency Management, and local officials estimated $15.8 million in emergency response costs and infrastructural damage,“including more than 200 homes, numerous businesses, roads and bridges, railroads, sewer systems, drinking water, and public utilities,” Moore’s statement said.

“With a natural disaster where residents, businesses, and public infrastructure are impacted on this scale, recovery is an all-hands-on-deck approach,” Russ Strickland, the secretary of the Maryland Department of Emergency Management, said in a statement after Moore issued the request. “The addition of much-needed federal assistance is necessary to get those affected back to their regular lives and to allow those communities to fully recover in months instead of years.”

When the president approves requests for disaster assistance, it allows states to request FEMA public assistance and access to the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program under the Stafford Act.

Moore said that, historically, the president awards disaster assistance if the joint damage assessment shows eligible costs over the county and state indicators. Maryland’s indicator is $11,674,953. Allegany County’s is $321,460.

“These estimates are above and beyond the thresholds for disaster assistance set by FEMA,” said Moore.

In a joint statement released Wednesday afternoon, Congresswoman April McClain Delaney and U.S. Sens. Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks — all Democrats — said that the affected areas are still in need of support to repair schools, libraries, roads, bridges, businesses and homes that were severely damaged during the floods.

“Even though the cost of the damage in these two rural Maryland counties exceeds the threshold for federal assistance, the Administration is refusing to come to their aid,” they said. “We strongly urge the President to reconsider this decision and deliver federal resources to Allegany and Garrett Counties so they are not forced to shoulder the burden of recovery on their own.”

Have a news tip? Contact Hannah Gaskill at hgaskill@baltsun.com and Jonathan Pitts at jpitts@baltsun.com.

Acting under legislation he signed into law in April, Moore pulled $5 million from the state’s Catastrophic Events Account to create the Federal Emergency Loan Program, as it’s known. That’s enough to offer loans to about 7,100 federal employees who have been fired or laid off.

But with the state expected to lose more than 11,000 civilian federal jobs, thousands will be left without access to that safety net — and to some, the net was far too small in the first place.

“If someone is in absolutely dire straits, I get it,” said Steve Natale, a longtime case manager with the Department of Homeland Security whose job comes to an end in October. “It’s enough to put some gas in your car. But most of the people we’re talking about are used to a steady paycheck. The $700 won’t sustain them for a week.”

“The federal and state governments should do better,” he said.

The loan terms come with strict limits. Borrowers must repay the $700 within 180 calendar days, with an option for a 90-day extension in cases of “dire financial straits.” If they don’t repay in full by the end of the extension, their account will be transferred to the Maryland State Central Collections Unit, and they’ll be responsible for paying the unit’s standard collection fee of 17% in addition to the amount borrowed.

The loan offer “is a morale boost, but the idea of having to pay that $700 back in six months when you’ve already lost your job … and you’re trying to find work in the middle of an extremely competitive job market, is tough,” said Justin Schnitzler, whose Baltimore law firm represents federal employees across the country.

“At best, you’re kicking the can down the road,” he said.

The numbers are hard to pin down in the rapidly evolving environment, but at least 50,000 and as many as 100,000 federal workers are believed to have taken buyouts or been fired, laid off or targeted for dismissal since Trump took office for the second time in January.

The reductions have been significant in Maryland, which has more federal workers per 1,000 employees than any other state. Already this year, Maryland lost more than 9,000 federal civilian jobs, according to the the Maryland Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Maryland Board of Revenue Estimates has projected that the state will lose at least 11,000 of its 160,000 civilian federal jobs — nearly 7% — and about 17,000 of the 225,000 other jobs supported by federal dollars in the state.

The state legislature stepped in on April 7 by passing the Protect Our Federal Workers Act of 2025, the bill that set aside funding for the loan program. Moore signed it into law two weeks later, calling it “the latest chapter in our work to ensure our federal workers get the support they need.”

Carter Elliott, a spokesman for the Moore administration, said in an email to The Sun that the loan is part of a larger array of services Maryland is offering at a moment of crisis.

“We know $700 can’t replace a steady paycheck, but it can help cover groceries, medication or transportation costs while families stabilize, seek out work opportunities, and explore other resources,” Elliott said. “This loan is not meant to be a full solution, but it is far from symbolic. It’s one tangible way the state is showing up for workers who need immediate relief while navigating the shock of job loss.”

In February, Moore launched an online resource hub, the Maryland Public Servants Resource Website, for those who had been or would be affected by the cuts. It includes links to job and job training opportunities, information about unemployment insurance through Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees, or UFCE, and information on access to emergency food, cash and other resources.

The state also provides 33 American Job Centers, each offering a range of employment-related services; weekly virtual workshops designed to help displaced federal workers “redefine” their career paths, and an expedited hiring process for some state positions, including in the health-care and corrections fields.

More than 1,340 Marylanders have made claims on the UFCE insurance, which pays up to $430 per week, said Dinah Winnick, a Maryland Department of Labor spokeswoman, and more than 1,300 have attended the virtual workshops, which take place at 9 a.m. every Wednesday.

At the same time, Moore has implemented a hiring freeze and “voluntary separation” program for state employees in an effort to cut $121 million in state government spending during the fiscal year 2026.

Shaun Southworth, the managing partner of Southworth PC, a national law firm that represents federal workers, said the state is doing what it can for laid-off workers even as it’s facing stiff economic headwinds, including cuts to resolve a nearly $3 billion state budget deficit and a downgrade to the state’s triple-A credit rating for the first time in decades from the Moody’s bond-rating agency.

“I think what the Maryland government is doing is a good road map for what other states with a lot of federal employees might consider doing,” Southworth said.

Still, the emergency loans are a topic of debate.

A fierce discussion has unfolded on the Facebook page of Evan Glass, a county councilmember in Montgomery County, which is home to 70,000 federal workers — 17% of its workforce.

“Micro-loans are okay, I guess,” one commenter wrote. “But do you know what’s even better? Jobs! I mean white-collar jobs that would benefit laid-off federal workers and recent college grads.”

“Like Md has the money to be giving any loans,” another responded.

“How is a one-time $700 zero-interest loan supposed to help someone who just lost a 75k-200k job?” one more wrote, calling the offer a “slap in the face.”

Applicants have been few so far. The 60 people who have applied are less than half of one percent of those expected to need help.

Asked whether the state is prepared for the applications that could come in, Winnick said only that the agency is “closely monitoring the number of applicants,”  “working to make sure [the program] runs smoothly,” and “preparing for a range of scenarios.”

Still, even if all 11,000 of those expected to lose their jobs apply, the inaugural budget would cover only about 65% — and Natale won’t be one of them.

The Bowie resident, a military veteran, and his wife, who is about to retire from a career in the military, have pensions to draw on. And because he took advantage of the Deferred Resignation Program, an exit plan also known as the “Fork in the Road” program offered to some federal employees in May, he’ll draw his full paycheck through Oct. 4.

He only wishes every federal employee had such support.

“If these were $700 grants, that would be one thing, but these are loans,” he said. “If you take one, you’re only deferring the payment for a few weeks. Even if I didn’t have this transition plan, I’d skip it.”

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

Before 1939, the global Jewish population was about 16.6 million, according to the Pew study “How the Global Religious Landscape Changed From 2010 to 2020.” Of those, nearly 57% — about 9.5 million — lived in Europe.

By the time the Nazi Party’s systematic murder of Jewish people in Europe ended in 1945, the global Jewish population had fallen to fewer than 11 million, a plunge of 34%. About 3.8 million remained on the continent.

For some in the Jewish community, the findings underscore how truly cataclysmic Hitler’s Final Solution was.

“When you see numbers like this, it’s a chilling reminder of the devastating impact of the Holocaust on the world’s Jewish population,” said Howard Libit, the executive director of the Baltimore Jewish Council. “It is hard to fully understand that so many years later, the worldwide population of Jews still has not recovered from our pre-Holocaust numbers.”

The 200-page-long Pew study explores changes in the global religious landscape during the decade in question, with chapters on population shifts in the Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim faith traditions and those it calls “other religions.” The authors also focus on changes within geographical regions.

Among other findings, they show that the number of Muslims grew by 347 million between 2010 and 2020, more than all other religions combined; that Buddhists were the only major religious group to lose population (about 19 million), and that while the number of Christians rose by about 122 million, that faith’s share of the world population fell 1.8 percentage points, to 22.8%.

“The world’s population expanded from 2010 to 2020, and so did most religious groups, according to [our] analysis of more than 2,700 censuses and surveys,” the authors wrote.

The world’s Jewish population has increased since 1945. But the growth has come gradually, in fits and starts, and more slowly than that of other groups.

Sergio DellaPergola, a professor of population studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and one of the world’s leading experts on Jewish demography, showed in a landmark 2015 study that it took 15 years after the end of World War II for the Jewish population to add a million people. It also showed that the Jewish population essentially flattened between the early 1970s and 1995.

The increase of 6.2% that Pew covers in the study released last month represents one of the larger spikes since the fall of the Third Reich. But even that figure boosted the total Jewish population to 14.8 million, more than 10% shy of the numbers recorded before the Holocaust.

DellaPergola has since reported that the world’s Jewish population reached about 15.7 million by 2023, a figure that still falls short of the one recorded 86 years ago.

The 6.2% increase also failed to keep up with the general growth of populations around the globe. The planet’s non-Jewish population jumped 12.3% between 2010 and 2020, the study said, from 7 billion to 7.87 billion, about twice the rate of Jewish growth.

Hana Bor, a professor in the Family Science department at Towson University and the founding director of the school’s Sandra R. Berman Center for Humanity, Tolerance and Holocaust Education, said the numbers can be read in a few ways.

While the 80 years since the Holocaust may seem like a long time, she said, they comprise a slice of Jewish history, which dates back about 4,000 years.

Bor conceded that the modest growth figures are “worrisome,” particularly at a time when Jews are feeling more vulnerable than they have in years in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel and the antisemitic demonstrations and other activities that have followed around the world.

But she said the Holocaust was such a devastating event that its effects have reverberated across generations, and the Jewish people are just beginning to gain a realistic perspective on what it meant.

“The Holocaust was such a traumatic event for the world, especially for the Jewish community, that it takes time to recover,” said Bor, who teaches classes and leads seminars on that dark chapter of history. “I was actually pleased to see that the population grew by 6%. It’s a slow recovery, but nevertheless, it’s going up a little bit.”

According to the authors, 87% of the world’s Jews live in North America or in the region they describe as the Middle East-North Africa, which includes Israel.

But the populations are not growing equally. During the period Pew studied, the Jewish population of Israel grew by 1 million people. In the United States, it increased by 30,000.

Bor said that may be because Jewish people have long regarded Israel as a safe haven, and uncertainty about their safety in other parts of the world has kept immigration to the Jewish state growing at a steady rate. Meanwhile, in the U.S., Orthodox Jewish families are having an average of about six children apiece, but those in the far larger non-Orthodox population are increasingly marrying outside the faith, waiting longer to have children, or simply having smaller families.

Bor said the rise in antisemitic incidents in the U.S.  has also left Jews feeling less safe in a country in which they’ve historically thrived. The Anti-Defamation League reported 9,354 antisemitic incidents in 2024, which included a 360% spike since the October 7 attack on Israel. Maryland recorded 356 antisemitic incidents in 2024, the sixth-highest total of any state.

But Bor also noted that more Jewish people of her acquaintance are saying that because of the ongoing threat of terror attacks and war, they’d prefer not to raise their children in Israel these days either.

“The next Pew study could look very different from this one,” she said.

Libit, meanwhile, said the study serves to reaffirm a truth that has been evident to the Jewish people and others since the horrors of the Hitler regime.

“At a time of rising antisemitism in the United States and around the world, these numbers also speak to the importance of our continuing efforts to educate about the Holocaust and to ensure that a genocide like that never happens again – for the Jewish community, or any other community,” he said.  “Acceptance of antisemitism and hate gives rise to an event like the Holocaust, and we need to constantly be aware of that.”

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

Eareckson has spent the rest of her life turning that tragedy into a comeback affecting millions.

In the late 1960s, she taught herself to paint landscapes, wildlife and religious themes with a paintbrush she held between her teeth. She used dictation to write her memoir, “Joni: An Unforgettable Story (1976),” which detailed her accident, described the faith that restored her hope, and became a bestseller and hit film.

Since then, she has penned more than 40 books, launched Joni and Friends, a Christian nonprofit that provides wheelchairs, counseling and spiritual support for people with disabilities worldwide, and hosts a daily radio program carried by more than a thousand stations. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan named Eareckson to the National Council on Disability, where she helped draft the bill that would become the Americans With Disabilities Act, which President George H. W. Bush signed into law 35 years ago this month.

Tada, who turned 75 in October, remains the CEO of Joni and Friends, whose $45 million budget supports 21 branches in the U.S. and rehabilitation programs in 15 countries. Unable to fly due to lung problems related to her quadriplegia, she reflected on her life in a telephone interview from her home in Calabasas, California. Her conversation with The Baltimore Sun has been edited for length and clarity.

Shortly after your accident, doctors predicted you probably wouldn’t live to age 30. What are your thoughts on turning 75?

I thank God for the medical advancements that made it possible for quadriplegics like me to maintain healthy lifestyles. But … I might be the most blessed quadriplegic in the world. I’ve got a job, I’ve got a husband, I’ve got accessible transportation and a home. In many regards, I am privileged. But I’m not going to sit on that privilege. I pour my life into the ministry that we run to make life better for other people with disabilities, not only here in the U.S. but around the world.

You grew up a Christian, and then an accident left you paralyzed. Did that affect your feelings about faith?

When I was on the field hockey team at Woodlawn High School, sweating out my 25 laps on the field every day, I’d think of Romans 8:28: “We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” I used to think God’s idea of “good” would be giving me good grades in high school and getting me into a good college. After my accident, I thought it would be to heal me and get me back on my feet. When he didn’t do that, I became somewhat resentful.

But I began to realize that God is interested in a more profound idea of good, a deeper idea that has to do with character — with endurance, tolerance and courage in the face of fearful unknowns. I realized he didn’t redeem us to make our lives happy, healthy and free of trouble. He redeemed us to make us more like Christ. And that is a deeper, more wonderful, more holistic, fuller, more profound idea of good. It took a while, but I got there.

How did that translate into your work for disability rights?

Even in Baltimore, when I used to go to restaurants after I broke my neck, and I was in a wheelchair, I’d have to go down back alleys and past dumpsters and go into a side door through the kitchen to get to the table. It was just hard to navigate. Businesses across the country had discriminatory hiring policies that made it difficult for people with disabilities who were qualified just to land a job. And in transportation, there were no mechanical lifts on buses. So there was discrimination.

How did you address that in your work with the National Council on Disability?

One of the first things we did was work with other disability advocates from across the country to develop a bill that would address the overall lack of access to public accommodations — theaters, restaurants, whatever — and access to employment as well as transportation. Those were the three big areas. I spent a great deal of time in 1988 and 1989 canvassing the halls of Congress to share with Senators and Representatives that there was a critical need for this bill. Thankfully, it passed in 1989 and was signed into law on July 26, 1990. It was quite a big day on the South Lawn of the White House.

What was it like working with presidents?

I connected with three on disability concerns: Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. They were wonderful. All three were fiscally responsible, but they had a strong sense of justice. The impetus of the ADA was that injustices were being carried out against people with disabilities. They shouldn’t be discriminated against just because they have a speech impediment or use a cane, a walker or a wheelchair.

On the 35th anniversary of the ADA, where do we stand?

Most disability advocates would say the law has been successful. I do think people are much more sensitive to the needs of those with disabilities, whether they’re people of faith or not. The familiarity with handicapped parking places — people may abuse them, but at least they understand that accommodations for people with disabilities are needed.

But we have a long way to go. Discriminatory employment policies are not lawful, but there are still laws that permit paying disabled workers subminimum wages. And yes, there are mechanical lifts on buses, but our transit services are unreliable and have limited coverage; there’s not a blending of those services. People with disabilities are often left without transportation. There needs to be a cohesive unity between these paratransit systems.

What would you like people to know about your current work at Joni and Friends?

We have a small financial grant program called the Christian Fund for the Disabled. We run retreats for families that struggle with disability. We’ll have 63 of those across the U.S. this summer. We provide counseling services at marriage getaways for couples that deal with disability. We’ll work with your church to give you the resources you need to find good, reliable caregivers in your area.

And we’re focusing on that next generation. We’re developing university-affiliated internships with colleges and universities that have good nursing, physical therapy and occupational therapy programs. These internships will allow [students] to go with us to a developing nation and observe the plight of people with disabilities to see how desperate it is.

How desperate is it?

In many developing countries, children with disabilities are not permitted to go to school. There are places in Africa where, if you have cerebral palsy, you’re considered cursed by animist spirits. There are countries where, if you’re a mother and give birth to a child with Down Syndrome, your husband will disown you. Very few people have access to jobs.

So we have [programs] in Kenya, Uganda, Argentina, Brazil, Nicaragua, Nepal, Peru, Serbia and more. Food packages, hygiene packages, Biblical counseling, physical therapy, and financial resources to help secure surgery — we provide a whole array of services that offer spiritual and practical support. We do this because people need more than just wheelchairs.

What should people without disabilities keep in mind about those who do?

When you see a wheelchair user, you can assume that that person’s legs are paralyzed, but their brain isn’t. They will have the same hopes, desires, gifts and talents as most typical people. It may take a little bit of courage for you to go outside your comfort zone, but treat them just as you would any person. Community is a wonderful thing.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

Plotkin, 93, an emeritus professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and an adjunct professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, led the discovery of the first vaccine against rubella in 1969. Seven years later, the number of reported cases had plunged to fewer than 13,000, and the number of those with congenital rubella syndrome, the condition causing birth defects, fell to 23. For decades, one of the world’s most contagious diseases was considered eradicated in the U.S. But today, measles is roaring back with more than 1,267 cases reported this year in the U.S., including three cases in Maryland.

Plotkin doesn’t hold back his anger with longtime vaccine skeptic Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose actions, public health professionals warn, could limit access to vaccines and reduce public confidence in them.

Plotkin’s interview with The Baltimore Sun has been edited for length and clarity.

How has vaccinology changed over your lifetime, and how has that changed the world?

I almost died as a child from three diseases that are now preventable. One was pertussis — whooping cough — which occurred in me when I was an infant. Then [came] pneumococcal pneumonia, which put me in an oxygen tent when I was about 3. Then when I was 9, I acquired influenza, developed encephalitis from that, and was put in a hospital, unconscious.

I personally escaped death from infectious diseases three times. Obviously, many other children did not. Parents today don’t face these things — assuming that they’re vaccinated, of course.

Of your many achievements in this field, what are you proudest of?

Preventing children from having congenital diseases like German measles and the consequences of that later in life is certainly something I’m proud of. With respect to rotavirus, which used to kill a lot of babies, and which is almost absent from the U.S., [eradicating] that is certainly something I’m proud of. And in general, helping vaccine development and use occur. [It changed] the overall picture concerning the ability of children to survive to adulthood; that’s certainly something that I’m happy about.

When I was a child, there were no routine vaccines. We now have the means to prevent about 20 different diseases. That’s remarkable.

What role did you play in the development of the COVID-19 vaccines?

I didn’t play any role in the development, but I did consult for quite a few of the companies that developed mRNA vaccines. The mRNA vaccines were not developed overnight; that happened over a period of about 20 years. Fortunately, when the COVID outbreak started, the technology was ready. That enabled the rapid development of a vaccine and saved … thousands of lives.

There has been no shortage of criticism about how the pandemic was handled, including questions about the vaccines. What are your thoughts?

When COVID first came out, it was in populations that had no prior immunity, so deaths were occurring in all populations. When [Anthony] Fauci [then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] and others recommended that the COVID vaccine be made general to stop the outbreak, you have to understand two things: First, it wasn’t long before almost everyone had been infected — unlike at the beginning, when nobody had been infected — and second, though they’re fairly good at preventing serious disease, COVID vaccines do not prevent infection.

When Fauci recommended general immunity, it was something I entirely agreed with … but what the opponents are pretending is that [general immunization] was a terrible idea from the beginning. That is absolute nonsense.

There are side reactions to mRNA vaccines, and it turns out most of those are in young men. But … COVID vaccines have prevented … thousands of deaths.”

Measles was declared eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, but we’re seeing outbreaks in Texas, Oklahoma and other states. Why?

That’s simple. A significant population, starting in Texas, for allegedly religious reasons, didn’t vaccinate their children. We don’t know how measles got introduced — it could have been an immigrant; it may have been a Mennonite from another country — but once it gets introduced, it infects about 12 people for every case. It’s not surprising that it continues to spread among populations that are not vaccinated.

Parents generally don’t face these kinds of serious diseases today, and when people have no experience with a serious disease, they think, ‘It’s not going to happen to me.’ But when fewer and fewer people are vaccinated, it begins to happen to them.

Longtime vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. What does he add to the conversation?

He operates on a zero scientific basis. His opinions are only that — opinions. What he says is coming from an individual who has no basis for making any scientific statement. That means that he’s transmitting information, which in many respects is false. That is obviously not good for Americans. It’s dangerous.

Why would he be given such an important public health position then?

I can only guess. I think President [Donald] Trump probably had a debt to RFK in terms of the election, and he’s paying off the debt.

Kennedy recently fired all 17 members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices (ACIP) and replaced them with eight new members with less experience in the field. This group is advising the CDC. Your thoughts?

I think the result will be chaos. One decision they made at a recent meeting — about [not] using [thimerosal, a preservative some believe may cause autism] that kills bacteria to prevent contamination of multidose vials of vaccine —- is based on flimsy data, or no data. It’s the kind of decision that has no justification but was made nonetheless. I think the worst is yet to come.

Will there be another pandemic? 

Sure, why not? You may or may not remember this, but the current virus is called SARS-CoV-2. There was a SARS-CoV-1. It started in China and spread through Asia. It was a very virulent virus, but it was controlled rapidly. Why shouldn’t there be a SARS-CoV-3? We should be prepared for that sort of situation.

You’ve said being a scientific researcher almost feels like a religious quest. What did you mean?

One way to put it is that scientists worship truth. But [some] people worship falsehoods. That, to me, was always one of the very attractive things about science: you don’t depend on what you would like to believe. You believe what you can prove.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

The Allegany County Sheriff’s Office joined what is known as the 287(g) program in June, agreeing to serve warrants on undocumented immigrants on behalf of ICE.

Named for Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the program allows DHS to enter into written agreements with local or state jurisdictions. Under those agreements, ICE is permitted to deputize state or local officers to carry out certain immigration-related functions normally performed by federal agents.

Among other things, the program allows local law enforcement agents to ask residents about their immigration status, check DHS databases for information on immigrants, and issue detainers to keep people in their custody until they can be picked up by ICE.

The Allegany County decision brings to eight the number of Maryland counties that have entered the partnerships, according to the database. Carroll, Cecil, Frederick, Harford, Garrett, St. Mary’s and Washington counties all previously signed agreements with the federal agency.

Neither Allegany County, its sheriff’s office, nor an ICE spokesperson responded to questions by publication.

Baltimore, Baltimore County, and Maryland’s 14 other counties have declined to enter into the agreements. Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott is among the leaders who have stated their jurisdiction’s police officers will focus on local matters, not on enforcing federal immigration law.

Scott has stuck to that policy amid what advocates have called a dramatic increase in ICE arrests and detentions of noncitizens in Baltimore since late May, when Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff and top immigration advisor, called a meeting in Washington to order ICE officials to carry out 3,000 arrests per day.

The 287(g) program has become a political football as the Trump Administration ratchets up what Trump vowed on the campaign trail would be “the biggest mass deportation operation in history.”

According to the ICE website, the program “enhances the safety and security of our nation’s communities by allowing ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) to partner with state and local law enforcement agencies to identify and remove criminal aliens who are amenable to removal from the U.S.”

The purpose is “to protect the homeland through the arrest and removal of aliens who undermine the safety of our nation’s communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws,” according to the post. But immigrant advocacy groups argue that the program gives local law enforcement room to engage in racial profiling and undermines trust between immigrants and sheriffs’ departments.

A 2011 investigation by the Department of Justice found, for instance, that police in Maricopa County, Arizona, systematically profiled Latino drivers after entering a 287(g) agreement, and another justice department investigation in 2012 found that police in Alamance County North Carolina, pulled Latino drivers over at 10 times the rate of non-Latinos after signing onto the federal program.

States can bar local law enforcement agencies inside their borders from entering 287(g) agreements, and six American states have done so — California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut.

An effort by Maryland lawmakers to enact such a prohibition statewide passed in the House in March but fell short in the Senate.

This story has been updated to correct Allegany County’s location in Maryland. It is the second-westernmost county in the state.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

But one of Baltimore’s highest-profile claims to fame – its legacy as a hub of film and TV production – remains uncelebrated in any central institution.

One showbiz legend believes such a museum would be an excellent idea — and though veterans of the local arts scene say any push for a film-and-TV museum would face plenty of obstacles, the founder of one of its top museums said she’d happily weigh in with connections and expertise.

“I think there is definitely room for it,” said filmmaker John Waters of “Pink Flamingos,” “Hairspray” and “Cecil B. Demented” fame.  “People would come and see the history of maybe the most beloved movies shot in Baltimore and the most hated movies shot in Baltimore. And it would be a good tourist attraction. I mean, people go to Divine’s grave all the time. That already is a tourist attraction!” (Divine, one of Waters’ film stars, is buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery in Towson.)

Rebecca Hoffberger, the founding director emeritus of the American Visionary Arts Museum, waxes even more enthusiastic about the idea than her friend Waters.

“John is absolutely right,” she said. “Who’d have thought that little old Maryland would become such a player in every aspect of the film and television industries? You’d have to have visionary people behind it, but [a Baltimore film/TV museum] could be a mecca of fun, a real resource for people. It could be a blessing for the community and a beacon for future filmmakers.”

Plenty of museums dedicated to film and television – not in Charm City

Museums dedicated to film and television and their cultural significance are no rarity in the United States.

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles contains more than 13 million cinematic artifacts and holds regular screenings in addition to its ever-changing slate of exhibitions, including one, “John Waters: Pope of Trash,” which focused on the Baltimore auteur’s six decades of shock-and-awe moviemaking during an 11-month run that ended in September.

The museum has drawn more than 700,000 visitors since opening in 2021.

The Museum of the Moving Image in New York, which concentrates on the art, history and technological elements of film and television, attracts about 250,000 people annually.

One of the few to concentrate on a geographical area, the Oregon Film Museum, features exhibits related to movies made in the state, including “The Shining,” “Stand By Me,” and “Kindergarten Cop.” Its most recent attendance figures showed a 20% year-over-year increase in 2023. Its fictional settings are not usually specific to Oregon.

But maybe no cinematic corner of the United States is quite like Baltimore. It’s where Waters and Academy Award-winning director Barry Levinson grew up, where former Baltimore Sun journalist David Simon conceived, wrote and filmed his classic TV crime series “Homicide: Life on the Street” and “The Wire,” and which continues to produce top film professionals such as Gabriel Francis Paz Goodenough, the documentary director whose 2024 film on Mayor Brandon Scott, “The Body Politic,” was widely heralded.

It isn’t simply that major productions such as Waters’ “Polyester” and “Cry-Baby,” Levinson’s “Diner” and “Liberty Heights,” and Simon’s critically acclaimed shows were filmed in places locals know or remember. They’ve made the city’s alternately gritty, kitschy and historically rich sites central to their filmscapes, creating images that audiences worldwide have come to associate with great storytelling and, for better and worse, with Baltimore.

“You can go to major film cities like New York or L.A., and of course a million movies are shot there, but there’s no doubt there’s something special about these places in Baltimore,” said Jed Dietz, the longtime director of the Maryland Film Festival, which he founded in 1999 and ran for 20 years.

Cinephiles say that opens countless possibilities for memorable exhibitions.

Think the iconic gross-out scene in “Pink Flamigos” in which Divine (the late drag-queen actor Harris Glenn Milstead), seeking to hold onto his character’s title as “filthiest person alive,” consumes dog feces. (Local film lovers tried to raise money for a statue at West Read and Tyson streets in Mount Vernon, where it was filmed, though the effort fell short.) Or a favorite of Levinson fans: the house at 4211 Springdale Avenue in Forest Park, where the director filmed aluminum-siding salesman B.B. Babowsky (played by Richard Dreyfuss in “Tin Men”) trying to fleece a housewife. Or the corner of North Fulton Street and West Lexington Avenue in West Baltimore, where the character Omar “Snot Boogie” Betts is found dead in the opening scene of “The Wire.”

All could be part of an interactive map of Baltimore film sites or of vehicle tours sponsored by a museum.

Waters is convinced such features would be popular. During a trip to Tokyo not long ago, he said, he realized “they have maps of Baltimore, and all that’s on them are the locations of my movies and [locations from] ‘The Wire'” — and even now he’s trying to decide what to do with a standing offer from an entrepreneur to start a bus tour of places where he has filmed.

“It’s something I might do someday,” he said. “Barry could do his own bus tour. So could David Simon. I think it’s great: all old film directors could end up being bus drivers!”

As diverse as their subjects are, Waters says he, Levinson, Simon and others who “make movies about the extreme parts of Baltimore” end up capturing one of its enduring oddball qualities, one he’d want any museum to capture: “We brag about things that other people try to hide.”

Debbie Dorsey sees possibilities in that. The director of the Baltimore Film Office remembers starting out in the field as a production assistant on Levinson’s “Avalon” in the late 1980s and later working on such films as the hit romantic comedy “Sleepless in Seattle” (1993) and the period piece “Washington Square” in 1997.

In those films, she said, Baltimore showcased the versatility that has made it so popular with filmmakers. Levinson transformed the looks of the Senator Theatre and Druid Hill Park to help recreate 1940s and 1950s Baltimore. The apartment where Meg Ryan’s character in “Sleepless” lived in the story was on Thames Street in Fells Point, and the makers of “Washington Square” used the historic architecture of Union Square to represent 19th-century New York.

Dorsey would argue for exhibits that capture some of the less heralded but no less crucial elements of filmmaking — showcasing, for instance, how production designers have evoked historical eras or dressed up ordinary materials like plywood to represent stucco or brick.

She’d also love to see the cockroach dress Ricki Lake wore as Tracy Turnblad in “Hairspray” on display, or a police officer’s desk setup, complete with tiny notepads beside their phones, from the sets of “Homicide.” But she says such artifacts are more than likely scattered hither and yon and would be a challenge to corral.

“How would you coordinate it? Whose idea would it be? Between [us] and the Maryland Film Office and other organizations, I’m sure we could come together, whether it were an ongoing museum or a permanent installation at an already existing place,” she said.

Film festivals have flourished over the years in Baltimore, including Dietz’s Maryland festival, an essential stop on the independent circuit for years before pandemic-related financial concerns led to a two-year hiatus in 2023. The filming of “Lady in the Lake,” the Apple TV+ series based on local author Laura Lippman’s novel of the same name, in 2022, brought $100 million to the local economy. The Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund in Film and Media Studies, a joint program of Johns Hopkins University and MICA for aspiring Baltimore filmmakers, has invested more than $2.5 million in grants in the work of 140 fellows since its founding in 2016.

But local movie buffs can’t recall a serious effort to establish a museum to celebrate Baltimore’s identity as a film and television center.

That comes as no big surprise to Kathleen Cusack Lyon, co-owner of the Senator and Charles theaters. Though she said she’d love to see a museum, she cautioned potential organizers to weigh the challenges.

“We’re aware of many well-intentioned organizations, nonprofits and cultural associations that have started out with what seemed like wonderful ideas but struggled,” she said, citing the costs of keeping the lights on, renovating buildings, and paying staff members, all of which require ongoing fundraising.

“It would take an ‘angel’ or a group of people who are extremely well connected and highly motivated and who can raise money, who might have connections to Hollywood and know who to call, what trees to shake,” she said.  “If money can be raised, then you can certainly go ahead with these ideas.”

Hoffberger rattles off a list of film people few may realize have area connections, from tough-guy movie star Robert Mitchum, who was born in Rising Sun, to the Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Richard Chisolm.

Exhibits on those and other subjects could draw and educate visitors, she said, and as long as organizers make sure the facility is interactive, “alive” and adaptable enough that visitors would see something new every time they return, it “would be a fabulous addition” to Baltimore.

Waters, of course, sees other possibilities. No local film museum would be complete, he says, without shining a light on the history of bygone local theaters that showed classic mainstream fare when they opened in the early 20th Century but were later turned into X-rated venues.

Virtually all — the old Rex Theater on York Road, the Apex in Upper Fells Point, the Little X at Howard and Franklin streets — are long gone. But to Waters, they’d be key to an institution that “acknowledged the good and the bad” and “wouldn’t take itself too seriously.

But he concedes it might not be easy to realize such a dream.

“We just need a rich person to give the money!” he said.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.

The cats belong to a colony of about 20 that live behind a row of vacant homes in West Baltimore. The three women are members of the Park Heights Animal Welfare Group, an all-volunteer rescue service that cares for more than 100 homeless felines in 13 colonies in the vicinity.

“Most people think feral cats are aggressive, but mainly they’re just terrified,” said Jeanette Davis, the group’s coordinator, between bouts of speaking baby-ese to the cats she loves and regularly feeds. “Educating the public is a major part of what we do.”

Somewhere between 86,000 and 185,000 cats live outdoors in Baltimore, depending on whom you ask. That’s as many as 660 cats per city neighborhood and one for every three people.

Whether that’s a good or a bad thing is a longstanding point of debate. Some love their personalities, appreciate their rodent-killing habits or worry about their safety. Others believe they’re unsanitary and out of control.

But whether they’re feral (cats who grew up in the wild), stray (lost or abandoned cats) or simply “community cats” (a recent term that encompasses both categories), they live behind restaurants, near dumpsters, in wooded areas next to alleys, and in abandoned neighborhoods — anyplace that offers a source of food and a bit of shelter.

The presence of outdoor cats — an estimated 30 to 80 million in the United States, according to the National Feline Research Council, with about 76% living in cities — presents an inescapable question: who takes care of them, and by what means?

In Baltimore, as elsewhere, the answers have changed over time.

For generations, and up through 2013, city policy reflected the belief that outdoor cats were pests in need of eradication. Health regulations forbade feeding them. Animal control officers captured as many as possible and returned them to the city shelter, where 98% were euthanized — an average of more than 11,500 per year.

As early as 2005, though, the “trap and kill” mindset began to soften. That was when Jen Brause, a local veterinary technician, founded the nonprofit Baltimore Animal Rescue and Care Shelter, or BARCS, and began disseminating information about a newer approach.

Under the “trap, neuter and return” (TNR) method, rescuers use humane traps to capture cats, bring them to an organization that offers neutering, get them vaccinated, have their ears tipped (surgically snipped in a painless procedure) to indicate they’ve been processed, and return them to their habitat in the wild.

Brause showed lawmakers evidence that, in addition to being more humane, TNR reduced cat populations more quickly. It became city policy in 2007. Six years later, after her group had received a million-dollar grant from the national rescue group Best Friends Animal Society, the city turned community cat matters over to BARCS.

As generous as Baltimore remains, however, the city still contributes about $1 million to BARCS’ annual $7 million budget, short of the $12 million Dauses said it needs. The organization can devote only two staffers to its Community Cat program and that’s why the model depends overwhelmingly on feline-fanatical volunteers and volunteer groups across the city today.

Davis’ group, with roughly 15 members, is one of several dozen self-created teams of cat lovers in Baltimore who, along with individual volunteers, keep a steady eye on cat colonies, make sure they’re fed, carry out trapping missions, get the cats to BARCS, the Maryland SPCA or private vets for neutering and vaccination, and generally return them to their colonies.

“There are a lot of wonderful community members who are caretakers for these cats and colonies — people who are dedicated to getting the cats spayed and neutered to control the population,” Dauses said. “Over time, the population will diminish. Ideally, at some point, it may not even exist.”

Their call essentially boils down to this: the cats are there, they have a right to be fed and live safely and with dignity, and it’s up to humans to keep their reproduction rate in alignment with community needs.

That leads to what might be called a battle between fertility and mortality. Female cats can breed at six months, and they give birth to an average of a litter and a half (six cats) per year, according to some studies. And while outdoor cats in TNR programs live an average of seven to 10 years, those who aren’t live more in the three-to-five-year range.

Cat devotees who spoke with The Sun described the work as a “labor of love,” a “never-ending challenge,” and a “Sisyphean task.”

“It’s an ongoing race,” said Kris Northrup, who has been a part of what she calls Baltimore’s “tight-knit rescue community” for about 10 years.

Northrup, 76, a resident of Old Goucher, has served as a group member but is now “a lone-wolf rescuer.” She advises and supports three neighbors who care for colonies, often making her rounds on a bicycle.

She also transports injured animals to veterinarians, frequently with financial support from Show Your Soft Side, a Baltimore nonprofit whose “street kitty fund” is available for feline medical needs, and carries out trapping when needed.

She captured 24 cats from a colony in the Coldstream-Homestead-Montebello neighborhood in Northeast Baltimore in September and neutered all of them — a typical result for a rescuer her colleagues view as a legend.

“They say it takes a village; we have a village,” Northrup said. “We may be a lone wolf, we may be affiliated with a rescue, but we all work together. It’s the most amazing group of people.”

Her friend Bob Sloane operates on a smaller scale.

The 83-year-old retired Spanish professor had long been a dog person, but he saw a neighbor taking care of a colony, and when the neighbor moved, Sloane decided to take over.

He got to know them over the months. Four now live in his house in Waverly, and the other five he feeds twice a day, putting out wet food for each and sitting in a chair as they eat.

After someone complained the practice might be drawing rodents, Sloane did what the rescuers’ code calls for by accommodating the neighbor: He started cleaning up the leftovers so they won’t tempt the city’s estimated 48,000 rats.

“All of us, including humans, are just trying to get along, to survive,” he says. “As long as I can help them, I’ll do it.”

As far as rats go, researchers have cast doubt on the belief that cats control their population. A 2009 study led by scientists at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health concluded that cat predation on rats was “sporadic” and had “relatively little impact on the size of the rat population.”

Northrup has even made videos of rats chowing down right alongside felines at mealtime — bad news, perhaps, for a city Orkin Pest Control ranked as ninth “rattiest” in the country last year.

The challenges don’t deter rescuers.

Davis, a Dundalk resident with four cat tattoos and nine cats at home, drives 15 miles each way to make her rounds with the Park Heights group. Her colleagues on this trip and others,  Amy Harbison and Demi Nolet, have seven cats between them and commute from Pasadena and Glen Burnie, respectively.

They’re part of a team that feeds the 13 colonies four times a week and has gotten 200 cats spayed and neutered over the past three years, heading off thousands of potential births.

Colony sizes can change so quickly that it’s hard to keep an accurate overall population count, but Davis believes the system is working. The colonies her team cares for have gotten notably smaller with time.

That’s one reason she has shown up to tend to outdoor cats in pouring rain, subzero temperatures and 100-degree heat and has no intention of slowing down.

“Nothing is going to keep me from my kitties,” she says.

Have a news tip? Contact Jonathan M. Pitts at jonpitts@baltsun.com.