Se habla español.
Interpreters available for other languages.
The ROAR Center is a recognized Center at the University of Maryland, Baltimore
410-706-2781
Se habla español.
Interpreters available for other languages.
The ROAR Center helps survivors of all types of crime in Baltimore City, Maryland recover from their trauma and start to rebuild their lives.
Our community-based violence intervention and prevention approach provides an alternative to aggressive policing and incarceration in efforts to reduce violence, increase public safety, and promote well-being.
We also support survivors who choose to engage in the criminal justice system, which is often re-traumatizing and non-responsive to the financial, emotional, and re-stablizing needs that many survivors experience.
ROAR provides a full range of free legal, social, medical, and mental health services tailored to survivors of crime—all in one place.
While our direct services program is focused on survivors who qualify, we also offer free self-help resources to anyone, anywhere.
The ROAR Center is actively committed to listening and contributing to community strength around personal resilience and how we respond to violent crime.
Through partnerships, modeling, advocacy, research, survivor storytelling, and more, ROAR works for progress across violence prevention, victim services, criminal justice and other reform movements.
ROAR doesn’t shy away from recognizing how systemic problems such as racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and disdain for people living in poverty are built into our system that — by design — keeps marginalized groups from succeeding.
We intentionally support Baltimore City residents and communities that have experienced the most systemic oppression and deprivation due to race, immigration status, sexual orientation, income level, source of income, age and other factors.
These residents are at highest risk of experiencing crime while also being the least likely to have well-resourced support systems. Because these communities have disproportionately experienced injustice at the hands of the law, they often don’t feel safe turning to law enforcement for help or engaging with the criminal justice system.
ROAR is dedicated to helping these resilient survivors rebuild their lives with respectful, trauma-informed services.
I was used to being treated like a thug, a criminal. As a Black man who is over 6 feet tall, I am used to people seeing me as a threat. Not ROAR, they told me right off that I deserved to be treated with compassion and to be loved. That my past did not define my present or my future. That changed me. It actually opened me up in ways that have only been good.
John W.