Michael Coleman recently tried to count all the places he lived as a child in a sometimes cash-strapped family. Eighteen, he tallied — or 25, if he included the homes of friends or relatives who took his family in when they couldn’t find a decent, affordable rental in Baltimore.

“They simply don’t exist,” said Coleman, 40. “Either they’re not affordable or they’re substandard.”

Coleman is among the advocates who plan to deliver petitions with thousands of signatures to City Hall today calling for a $20 million investment in affordable housing and another $20 million in jobs to deconstruct vacant houses and improve neighborhoods.

The Baltimore Housing Roundtable, a coalition of progressive and community groups behind the so-called 20/20 campaign, wants the city to issue bonds or otherwise fund the initiatives. The group picked today to deliver the petitions, which it says were signed by more than 20,000 residents, because it is the one-year anniversary of the election of Mayor Catherine E. Pugh, who on the campaign trail and since has expressed her commitment to affordable housing and jobs taking down Baltimore’s vacants.

In addition to electing Pugh, voters last November approved a ballot question that amended the city charter to create an affordable housing trust fund. The fund would be used to develop and maintain housing that low-income residents can afford, advocates want to make sure that that city officials commit dollars to it.

“Now is the time to put their money where their mouths are,” said Coleman, an organizer with United Workers. The group, which advocates for fairness in labor, development and other issues, organized the housing roundtable several years ago.

“That movie, ‘Jerry Maguire’ — this is where I am at this point,” Coleman said. “Show me the money.”

Pugh expressed support for the roundtable’s campaign at a rally in May.

“The vision for 20/20 is one that I support,” Pugh told the advocates at the War Memorial Building.

Asked Tuesday for comment on the $40 million request, Pugh said in a statement said she is “committed to expanding the options along the spectrum of housing from homelessness to affordable.” Through the work of housing officials and their partners, she said, more than 1,000 affordable units are in either the planning or construction phases.

“I am committed to this issue and will work with our partners and advocates to explore eligible sources for the Affordable Housing Trust Fund,” she said.

Todd Cherkis, another United Workers organizer, said it’s time to move forward on the trust fund.

“The voters decided this, this is something the mayor ran on, and there hasn’t been a lot of action on it,” he said.

Cherkis said advocates unsuccessfully sought a meeting with city budget director Andrew Kleine to discuss funding for the 20/20 proposal, and planned to deliver their petitions to his office. Kleine, who said Tuesday he will leave office at the end of the year, declined to comment.

Cherkis said the director’s departure doesn’t change the group’s goal of gaining input in city budgeting.

“This is really about an agency and a process, not one person,” he said.

Cherkis said The Baltimore Sun’s yearlong investigation into the city’s rent court showed the pressing need for affordable housing assistance. The Sun reported that Baltimore has one of the nation’s highest eviction rates and a court system that often fails to protect tenants from dangerous and unhealthy housing conditions. One researcher has estimated that one third of the city’s 128,000 rental units are substandard.

“The Sun report was pretty damning,” Cherkis said. “And we haven’t seen much policy to address that.”

Baltimore is seeing a boom in pricey waterfront apartments — rents at the 414 Light Street tower under construction at the Inner Harbor will start at about $2,000 a month, and go as high as four times as much. But much of the housing that’s available for the less affluent is aging, in bad shape or both.

“The middle and lower end of the market has been left behind,” City Councilman Zeke Cohen said.

Cohen and other council members plan to join advocates at City Hall to support their goals. He said he would like to see an analysis of what the city can afford, and perhaps a pilot program to start.

In addition to an affordable housing fund and the removal of vacants, advocates say the city should fund community land trusts, in which residents rather than developers own parcels in their neighborhoods to develop or oversee affordable housing. There are two such trusts in the city. The roundtable says several communities are developing their own.

jean.marbella@baltsun.com

twitter.com/jean_marbella