Cops, Fire Rescue Face Added Burdens, Squeezed Budgets By Increase In Vacant Homes

In Providence, Rhode Island, The Providence Journal reports:

• [T]he foreclosure crisis has added another dimension to firefighters’ jobs — forcing them to patrol the [vacant] houses for fire hazards, knowing that if there is a fire they will have to search these hulks to make sure no one is inside.

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• The Police Executive Research Forum, in Washington, D.C., surveyed police chiefs and sheriffs this summer about how the economic troubles were affecting their departments. The survey uncovered worries about rising disorder caused by vacant houses attracting vandals, gangs and prostitutes, even as police departments’ operating budgets are decreasing.

For more, see As economy founders, crime on rise.