W***n
发帖数: 11530 | 1 Cleveland's plan to destroy nearly 6,000 homes
By Les Christie @CNNMoney November 13, 2014: 6:00 PM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
In and around Cleveland, nearly 6,000 foreclosed and abandoned homes are
being destroyed in an effort to save neighborhoods from blight, crime and
sinking home prices.
Instead of trying to rebuild on these properties, however, the city has been
turning the empty lots into parks, greenhouses, even vineyards.
"For the larger body -- the neighborhood -- to survive, you have to remove
those cancer cells," said Frank Ford, a policy adviser for the nonprofit
Thriving Communities Institute of Cleveland.
During the housing bust, Ford worked at a community redevelopment group that
renovated 50 foreclosed homes in Cleveland for $180,000 each. They sold the
rehabbed homes for about $90,000 apiece, taking a $90,000 hit on each.
If they had spent that money to demolish nine or 10 foreclosed homes instead
and turned the land into green space, it would have had an immediate
beneficial impact, said Ford.
"There's a direct relationship," said Ford's colleague Jim Rokakis, a
director at Thriving Communities. "If there are two bad houses on a block,
people will move away and their houses go vacant. Take them down and people
will stay."
In June 2013, Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, was granted
permission to use more than $10 million of Ohio's Hardest Hit Fund money to
tear down up to 1,000 abandoned buildings.
The Hardest Hit Fund, which was established by the Treasury Department in
2010, was initially set up to back efforts that prevented foreclosures. The
money could be used to lower a troubled borrower's mortgage balance, for
example.
But in cities like Cleveland, there were so many blighted, vacant homes
plaguing whole neighborhoods that funds started being reallocated toward
demolition instead.
foreclosure demolitions This Cleveland home is one of thousands that were
abandoned.
foreclosure demolitions After the home was torn down, the lot was given to a
neighbor who turned it into green space.
Tearing down houses has been so effective in Cleveland, that last month
Cuyahoga County issued a $50 million bond so it can demolish another 5,000
houses, said Rokakis.
The house cleaning extends beyond Cleveland.
Michigan is using $175 million in Hardest Hit Fund money to demolish homes
across 16 cities, including Detroit, Flint and Grand Rapids. In Detroit
alone, where there are about 80,000 abandoned properties, 250 homes are
being demolished a week.
Gary, Ind., is using $6.6 million in Hardest Hit funds to demolish 700 of
its 8,000 vacant homes and buildings. Meanwhile, long suffering Youngstown,
Ohio, is spending Treasury money to knock down a few hundred of its 4,000
vacant buildings, according to Councilman John R. Swierz.
Many of the emptied lots will be offered to neighbors who agree to maintain
the properties. Others will be planted with trees or other plants.
Youngstown, which has seen its population fall by 60% since the 1960s, has
even paid homeowners to relocate away from otherwise abandoned blocks so the
city can shut down neighborhoods entirely, saving on sewer, sanitation,
water and other services.
Back in Cleveland, big empty lots have been re-purposed into orchards,
greenhouses and food production facilities, said Ford.
Entrepreneur Mansfield Frazier even founded a vineyard, called Chateau Hough
after the neighborhood, on a three-quarter acre lot where a 30-unit
apartment building once stood.
In 2010, the Cuyahoga County Land Bank said it would give Frazier the land
if he could make a go of the vineyard within five years. He was able to
claim it in three.
frazier vineyard Mansfield Frazier has built a successful vineyard on the
land where an abandoned building once stood.
Excavating and planting the land was tough, though.
"Digging down, I found everything but dead bodies," said Frazier. "I even
found a kitchen sink."
But the whole neighborhood pitched in -- as did ex-cons from a nearby
halfway house, who did much of the heavy work, and college professors from
nearby Case Western University.
The vineyard's impact on the neighborhood, long known for the 1966 racial
riots, has been deep, said Frazer.
Chateau Hough produced its first wines last year and Frazier expects to
produce about 1,000 bottles of the 2014 vintage and double that when the
vines fully mature in a few more years. | W***n
发帖数: 11530 | 2 See the reasons for the advertised $1 homes
hahaha | t**o
发帖数: 6659 | 3 nobody will be there. sad
like the conditions in Detroit.
【在 W***n 的大作中提到】
: See the reasons for the advertised $1 homes
: hahaha
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