Each year, the Edmondson Community Organization (ECO)—a nonprofit in Baltimore dedicated to revitalizing the city’s Midtown-Edmondson area—reviews an obscure list of properties released by the government. The task is to see how many are situated within the organization’s neighborhood boundaries. The fewer, the better. The owners of the properties that do appear have fallen behind on their property taxes and, as a result, are poised to lose their real estate in an annual tax sale conducted by the government. After poring over the list, the ECO knocks on those doors to deliver the queasy news an…