A major Baltimore affordable housing nonprofit is falling apart

One the most promising Baltimore nonprofits dedicated to providing affordable housing is under financial strain — and has become part of a federal investigation.

The North East Housing Initiative has worked for more than a decade to stabilize East Baltimore, winning millions of dollars in government grants, securing private donations and building a portfolio of about 40 homes. The nonprofit organization is a “community land trust” that sells houses to low-income buyers and then keeps them affordable by restricting their resale price.

But the group’s finances have been teetering on the brink for the past few years, according to court documents and interviews with the organization’s leadership, and the city has paused grants designed to help the organization operate sustainably.

The FBI is probing cryptocurrency donations received by NEHI, according to a subpoena reviewed by The Banner. The nonprofit is also being sued in federal court for breaching a contract with a lender and has been hit with two separate federal tax liens since September.

A City Hall official, who asked for anonymity to discuss a pending federal investigation, said the pause came at the advice of legal counsel and following previous instances of financial missteps by the organization.

Garrick Good, NEHI’s CEO and president, denied allegations of financial impropriety and criticized the city for cutting off grant funding without hearing his side of the story.

“We’ve been ostracized as an organization,” Good said in an interview earlier this month.

Community land trusts

NEHI was founded a little more than a decade ago after thousands of city homes entered foreclosure during the Great Recession. The city has awarded at least $3.2 million to the group since 2023, according to city Board of Estimates records and databases, and it has grown into Baltimore’s preeminent community land trust.

“I’m proud to have you all as partners,” state Sen. Cory McCray, an East Baltimore Democrat, said in a video he posted to social media in April, showing him with Good at an NEHI groundbreaking. “We’re actually demonstrating that NEHI plays a very important role in reference to the future, the fruition of Baltimore City and it being successful.”

McCray declined to comment.

Governed by boards of directors, community land trusts buy property and enter into shared equity agreements with low-income homeowners while retaining control of the land. When a homeowner wants to move on, the community land trust requires the home be sold at a below-market rate to keep it affordable.

It’s an atypical concept that has gained traction across the country as a way to stave off gentrification, said Jason Webb, a leader at Grounded Solutions Network, a national organization that works with cities, including Baltimore, to implement community land trusts.

A ballot initiative by city voters in 2016 approved the Affordable Housing Trust Fund, a pot of money that helps stand up community land trusts and other initiatives.

There are four active community land trusts in Baltimore. Of them, NEHI has received the most support from the specialized fund, according to Board of Estimates records and city websites.

Because the community land trust concept is still relatively new, when one struggles, government and private entities may think twice about giving to any of them, Webb said.

“Every community land trust is interconnected to one another,” Webb said. “Any failure always gives our dissenters more fuel to say, ‘We told you. It didn’t work.’”

Good, 58, has led NEHI since 2018. A South Carolina native, he describes himself as a “serial entrepreneur” with a passion for housing.

The nonprofit grew quickly under his leadership, he said, from having a $50,000 annual budget to a multimillion-dollar enterprise, according to publicly available tax forms. It did so without many of the policies and procedures befitting of a larger nonprofit, he said, as well as without some “back-office” functions to handle accounting and other duties.

To stabilize NEHI, Good said, he has instituted tighter financial controls.

Cryptocurrency and the FBI

In Good’s telling, NEHI’s financial problems ramped up after receiving anonymous cryptocurrency donations totaling around $2.2 million in mid-2025. NEHI used The Giving Block platform that’s designed to facilitate digital donations to nonprofits.

Federal authorities froze about $1.6 million of the crypto, Good said, and have denied his request to release it.

The probe caused other NEHI bank account closures, Good said, adding that his personal financial accounts also shuttered without explanation. He said neither NEHI nor any of its staff are the subjects of the investigation.

“It’s blown up. It’s really gotten way bigger than it should have,” Good said.

The U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI declined to comment.

Court filings show that some of NEHI’s financial problems predate the arrival of the cryptocurrency.

In March 2024, JPMorgan Chase filed what is known as a confessed judgment action against NEHI, seeking more than $790,000 in principal, interest and fees after the organization defaulted on a $750,000 line of credit, court records show. A confessed judgment provision in loan documents allows a creditor to obtain a judgment without the usual litigation process if the debtor defaults.

Court records show that the debt has not been paid, and a hearing is scheduled for next month.

The National Cooperative Bank closed NEHI’s account in January 2025, saying that the housing provider failed to honor the “terms and conditions of the account,” according to court records. The bank did not respond to a request for comment.

The next month, NEHI’s roughly 12-member board of directors tried to put Good on administrative leave, citing “severe concerns about the nature of the [organization’s] debits.” The letter to Good, court filings show, also referenced the JPMorgan Chase default.

Good sought an injunction in Baltimore City Circuit Court to stop his removal, court filings indicate, and he accused the board of wrongly withholding his $85,000 salary in 2024. A judge ruled against Good, but he said he worked out a plan with the board to stay on and see the situation through. Some board members resigned in the wake of the conflict, current and former board members said.

In April 2025, PNC Bank filed a breach of contract complaint, accusing NEHI of failing to make payments on two lines of credit and a loan totaling more than $1.3 million. A judge entered a consent judgment in February against NEHI for the full amount.

The IRS recorded its first federal tax lien against NEHI last September for about $21,000, court filings show.

In January, the Washington, D.C.-based National Housing Trust Community Development Fund filed a lawsuit against NEHI in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleging that the organization owes it about $630,000 after defaulting on a line of credit and a loan.

In an attempt to satisfy the debt, NEHI wrote a check for $464,187 in November 2024 that was denied for insufficient funds, the plaintiff alleged.

The National Housing Trust moved for a judgment against NEHI without a trial, and the case is pending. Court records show that NEHI has not responded to the motion but has asserted various defenses in the case — including that the city cut off grant funds. Attorneys representing the trust did not respond to a request for comment.

With NEHI’s financial pressures mounting, Good said he tried to use money from a personal investment account to cover the organization’s expenses late last year.

In April, he was charged with two counts of writing bad checks. The charges were dropped last week while police continue to investigate the matter, Howard County State’s Attorney spokesperson Yolanda Vazquez said.

Meanwhile, Good said he laid off all seven of NEHI’s full-time employees last month, leaving the organization with five independent contractors.

Around the same time, the second federal tax lien for about $370,000 landed. Good described the liens as payroll-related matters that are in the process of being corrected.

Earlier this year, Good wrote the DOJ to say that NEHI rightfully owns the cryptocurrency and should regain access to its digital wallet. He said the DOJ denied the request.

Danise Jones-Dorsey, a founding member of NEHI who serves as its board chair, said the nonprofit has learned tough lessons. Among them: Grant awards sometimes take months to show up in an account and organizations need lots of cash on hand to withstand temporary shocks, such as unexpected legal and professional fees.

Jones-Dorsey, who became chair for a second time last year after the attempted ouster of Good, said she felt the board reacted prematurely and without a full understanding of those harsh economic realities.

“We didn’t know what we didn’t know,” Jones-Dorsey said. “The community land trust is a different animal.”

What’s at stake

Part of NEHI’s mission is to create wealth-building opportunities for its participants, with a mindset that the path to stable homeownership doesn’t end at the closing table.

That means working with homeowners to get utility bill assistance, special tax assessments, reasonably priced home repairs and lower insurance rates, Good said. The nonprofit also tries to be a good neighbor in East Baltimore, he added, working with neighbors to resolve common nuisances such as trash, rat abatement and illegal dumping.

People who have bought homes through NEHI describe it as a positive influence in their lives.

On a sunny afternoon in the Four by Four neighborhood, just south of Belair-Edison, Joann Wilkes, a retired custodian, tended to her house as neighborhood kids played outside.

NEHI stewards several properties in the small community, some of which are boarded up and others that are neatly kept and decorated, including Wilkes’.

She didn’t know until recently about NEHI’s troubles.

“I’m sorry they are having financial problems, like we all are,” Wilkes said. Good in particular has been helpful to her, she added. “As long as the Lord blesses me to stay here, I’m staying here.”

NEHI’s financial issues could pose complications for those it helped buy homes, Webb said, especially those who want to sell or refinance their homes in the near future. Should the organization become insolvent, residents would be transferred to new stewards or have the opportunity to buy the land, he said.

It could also mean stunted growth in the same East Baltimore neighborhoods that NEHI had hoped to revitalize.

There are about 10 community land trusts in Maryland, according to Grounded Solutions Network. Claudia Wilson Randall, executive director of the Community Development Network of Maryland, which advocates for community-driven housing providers, said the state’s trusts have been largely slow to develop.

Randall said all have been threatened by a vastly changing national housing landscape, with higher interest rates, heightened materials costs and smaller labor pools — and the slow embrace of new ideas.

“It’s really difficult to do this work and it’s not getting easier,” she said. “Challenges to cash flow and sustainability threaten all nonprofit entities.”