Recent Stories On Cities Battling Problems With Vacant, Abandoned Homes

Add the following places to the list of cities having problems dealing with vacant, abandoned, boarded up properties:

• Ypsilanti, Michigan: Lawn cutting bites into budget (Foreclosures force more mowing by Ypsilanti Township): With more homes falling into foreclosure, mowing grass at vacant properties is costing Ypsilanti Township more money. Township administrators are asking the township Board of Trustees to increase the 2008 nuisance-abatement budget from $50,000 to $125,000. The money pays for cutting grass, boarding up abandoned properties and cleaning up blight, said Police Service Administrator Mike Radzik.

• Long Island, New York: Foreclosed homes host to wild parties, squatters: Property preservation companies on Long Island and nationwide are so overwhelmed by the high number of foreclosures that an increased number of abandoned homes are falling victim to vandalism, burglaries and raucous spring break parties that cause tens of thousands of dollars in damage. [... A] Babylon-based Realtor said a spring break party – the empty beer bottles were a dead giveaway – damaged a long-vacant West Babylon home. The wreckage, estimated at $20,000, included damaged sheetrock.

• Jackson, Michigan: Foreclosed Homes A Big Problem for Cities: A burden that should belong to the banks that own the city's 300 foreclosed homes, but City Assessor Jan Markowski says some are opting to let the city do their dirty work and just pay the fine. The problem is Jackson work crews can't keep up with foreclosures popping up like weeds.

• Lathrop, California: Foreclosures leave Lathrop's west side deserted: Foreclosures have turned one west side Lathrop neighborhood into a ghost town, an occurrence that some say is becoming a common tale across the city. [...] Many of the foreclosed homes stick out due to the dead grass and overgrown weeds filling up the front yards. [Homeowner J.R.] August said he and his neighbors often water and mow the lawns of the empty houses to keep blight from taking over their neighborhood. The Lathrop Code Compliance Division has posted signs on the garages of these empty houses to warn about the overgrowth violations, but upkeep has fallen upon the remaining neighbors.

• Toledo, Ohio: Toledo taxpayers, neighbors bear woes of vacant sites (Study: City holds up, but crisis is looming): [A] study, titled "Toledo at the Tipping Point," states the city has moderate levels of abandonment and vacancy when compared with other cities, but warns "powerful market forces could bring on a vacant property crisis."

• Tulare County, California: Neighbors of vacated homes seek solutions: There have been more than 1,000 home foreclosures in the last three months in Tulare County, leaving once-full neighborhoods blotted with abandoned houses. Those sticking around have faced a dilemma: How to determine responsibility for that eyesore on the block.

• Columbia, South Carolina: City fed up with out-of-town landlords: The city has 54 pending boarded-up housing cases, according to a list that was last updated in May. Twenty-three of the houses are in North Columbia.

• Worcester, Massachusetts: McGovern calls foreclosures ‘terrible crisis’: For the residents of Preston Street, these [foreclosure] signs have become all too familiar. On this short block alone, six houses have been foreclosed upon. [...] With the recent foreclosures, the neighborhood has seen an increase in vagrants and drug dealers breaking into the vacant houses. “You have the bad people going into these empty houses, looking for a free place to stay or a nice place to sell drugs,” [one resident] said. “They get into these houses and they destroy them, and then after the city gets them out, they close them up and board them up.”

• Provo, Utah: Riverbottoms mortgage fraud: Residents deal with fallout: For nearly a year, a stately red brick mansion [...] in Vintage On the River, a subdivision in the affluent Riverbottoms area in Provo, has remained vacant, its yellowing front lawn in stark contrast to the manicured, verdant lawns of neighboring luxury homes. This home, one of five properties that federal investigators say were subject to an illegal property flipping scheme in 2006, is among an estimated 20 Riverbottoms properties blighting an area hard-hit by the housing downturn, an ongoing credit crunch and a glut of luxury housing inventory in Utah County.

• Lake Elsinore, California: In areas of Lake Elsinore, foreclosures force those left to pick up higher tax bill: Lake Elsinore homeowner Jan Vyse need only look at the vacant homes in the Tuscany Hills neighborhood for an explanation of the $200 increase she will see this year on her community facilities district tax bill. As more homeowners fall into foreclosure and tax delinquency, the city is asking homeowners in good standing, like Vyse, to pick up the slack so the city can pay its own debts on time. [...] Homeowners in 11 of the 26 [Lake Elsinore] districts will have higher bills to cover delinquent taxpayers.

• Phoenix, Arizona: Valley homeowners fight blight caused by foreclosures: [One homeowner] is surrounded by three bank owned homes and another further down the block that is about to enter the foreclosure process. [...] In the worst cases there are box springs on a front patio, a discarded office chair on the front lawn, missing light fixtures, trash in trees, and garbage scattered around the properties;

• North Hudson, Wisconsin: Home foreclosures create problems in North Hudson: Foreclosed and abandoned houses in the village are causing urban blight and generating complaints to the Board of Trustees. [... V]illage officials’ hands are somewhat tied.
  “We can’t just walk in and fix it up,” said Trustee George Klein, “because we would be trespassing.” [Public Welfare Committee and chairman Jim] Thomas said that the law dealing with code violations is weak on enforcement.

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