Empty Neighborhoods Fill Rust Belt

Federal Funds To Target Areas That Never Recovered From 1980s Recession

(AP)  Meet the forgotten housing crisis.

While most attention has focused on the wave of foreclosures sweeping mostly middle-class, suburban Sunbelt neighborhoods from California to Florida, the nation's emptiest neighborhoods have remained concentrated in the same place for nearly a generation: the mostly minority, poor, urban neighborhoods of the American Rust Belt.

An analysis by The Associated Press, based on data collected by the U.S. Postal Service and the Housing and Urban Development Department, shows the emptiest neighborhoods are clustered in places hit hard during the recession of the 1980s - cities such as Flint, Mich.; Columbus, Ohio; Buffalo, N.Y.; and Indianapolis.

"I'd move in a heartbeat if I had somewhere to go right now," said Cindy Olejniczak of Buffalo, raking trash from the lawn of a boarded-up house to keep it from blowing in her yard. Roughly every third home in her neighborhood is vacant. Not even pizzerias will deliver to the area now.

"It's almost like you wish they would just level the whole neighborhood," she said, "and start rebuilding again from scratch."

Federal lawmakers have designated nearly $6 billion over the past year for local governments to do just that - buy and either rehabilitate or demolish foreclosed and abandoned homes.

The AP's analysis, however, shows the money will only make a modest dent in the problem. As of March 31, there were about 4 million homes that have been empty for 90 days - a slight increase over last year's figures and about 3 percent of all U.S. homes.

The federal money will be distributed based on a complicated formula that considers local rates for foreclosures, high-cost mortgages and vacancies. There won't be enough money to completely fix places such as the neighborhood in western Columbus that is the nation's emptiest. A mostly vacant apartment complex with chained-off parking areas shares a drab stretch of asphalt with a strip club, payday lender and abandoned retail stores. About 70 percent of the neighborhood's housing is empty.

The number of abandoned homes scattered throughout the nation's 65,000 neighborhoods concerns federal officials because of the potential to prevent the economy from recovering. Empty housing feeds upon itself. Experts say as more houses stand vacant, property values and tax revenues drop. The drop in property values lead to fewer buyers, which lead to more vacancies.

"It becomes a vicious cycle," said Jennifer Vey, a researcher with the Washington-based Brookings Institution. Vey said people have been shoved out of the Rust Belt by the collapse of the manufacturing economy for more than a generation now, and drawn to the temperate Sun Belt by more jobs and a lower cost of living.

The cycle makes residents in hard-hit neighborhoods feel as abandoned as the vacant buildings that surround them.

In some sections of certain areas like Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, roughly two of every three homes are vacant or used by squatters. The area is more than 70 percent black and poor, with unemployment often around 50 percent. It's a place where simmering resentment and frustration boiled up into three days of rioting in 2001 after police fatally shot a young, unarmed black man fleeing arrest on traffic warrants.

The neighborhood, which took its name from early German immigrants, is highlighted by its 19th century Italianate architecture. On a cool morning on Elm Street, people sat on front stoops, chatting amiably with each other and greeting passers-by on what at first glance looked like a thriving, friendly residential block. But a look up at windows with only darkness behind them and doors with "No Trespassing" police orders gave it a Potemkin village feel.

"All those are empty," said Joe Griffin, 50, who is homeless and spends nights in a shelter and public park.

In Olejniczak's Buffalo neighborhood, homes across the street and on one side have been torn down, along with the house on the diagonal corner. The house on the other side of hers is standing but boarded, its lawn a tangle of overgrown weeds, pizza boxes, liquor bottles and wrappers. It's an eyesore she got tired of looking at. So, on a recent afternoon, she grabbed a shovel, rake, broom and a box of trash bags and, with her 81-year-old mother, got to work.

"I couldn't stand looking at this anymore. I look out my window at it every day," she said, nodding across to her own neatly kept home where daffodil shoots were sprouting after a long winter.

In Buffalo, there are as many as 10,000 vacant, abandoned homes. Suburban sprawl, an aging population and manufacturing losses have left the city with a population under 300,000 - about half what it was during the 1950s.

Things may be even worse in Flint, Mich. Jeffrey Taylor, 51, moved to a vanishing neighborhood in the late 1960s, when his father worked for General Motors. Taylor, a handyman, lives just north of a huge concrete slab once home to a 130-acre GM complex known as Chevy-in-the-Hole.

At its peak, the factories employed thousands. Now, all but one of the 20 factories and buildings in the industrial valley have been closed and torn down, driving residents from his neighborhoods. City officials are thinking about bulldozing large swaths of the city. Taylor's is one of the state's emptiest neighborhoods, with nearly one in three homes vacant.

"Once these shops are gone, these people start going back home, they start heading back south," Taylor said.

The abandoned homes draw thieves who steal whatever metal they can to sell for scrap, so Taylor pulls vehicles into the driveway of the empty house next door to make it look occupied.

Cities across the region are trying to reverse the tide, buying and either rehabilitating or bulldozing empty homes. Even with billions of federal dollars pouring into cities, civic leaders such as Steve Leeper, director of a Cincinnati development group, say fixing lead paint, asbestos, decay and other problems takes a long time.

So far, his nonprofit group, backed by local businesses, has spent $84 million to rehabilitate Over-the-Rhine housing.

"A 20-year vacancy is just brutal on a building," said Leeper, maneuvering past construction workers inside the dusty shell of what's planned as the future home of luxury condominiums.

Already, there are a more than dozen new shops, restaurants and small businesses in Over-the-Rhine, and more than 80 percent of the first new condos have been bought, at an average price of $150,000. Sales have been strong in 2009, Leeper said, particularly among first-time home buyers who don't have the problem of trying to also sell suburban homes in the down housing market.

But the renaissance hasn't been felt throughout the neighborhood, and some are skeptical.

"I think the direction the city is going in isn't helping the low-income and middle people. It's pushing them out," said the Rev. Leroy Owens, who heads a Christian outreach ministry that also owns rental property, some of it boarded up. "The lower-income people need a place to live, too. They're getting discouraged."

Leeper said there are plans to offer more affordable housing and more rental units, in phased development meant to make sure there aren't pockets of empty housing left in the made-over neighborhood.

"When you don't have an area populated," he said, "it doesn't have a heart."

[brianbwb-2009]

"Taylor's is one of the state's emptiest neighborhoods, with nearly one in three homes vacant. "

There is a silver lining in this, Taylor used to be the home of the Michigan chapter of the kkk, it was, after the death of Dearborn's Orville "Dearborn will stay white as long as I'm alive" Hubbard, one of the most racist areas in the region, if not the most, and if those people have vanished, it can only be good for the neighboring areas, like Inkster, and Dearborn heights.

[brianbwb-2009]

To cdgreg

Highly unlikely, if you check the stats, ever since Reagan's "jobless recovery", the increase in empty houses is more than dwarfed by the increase in homeless Americans. If you live in any major metropolitan area, you will have noticed the increase in homeless people living in the streets.

It is highly delusional to suppose that the US economy, which by every statistic known, became more concentrated at the top, to the point now that the top 15% recieved 85% of the nations money, (thanks to Reagan's trickle down corruption, and that of his adherents) has allowed the poor to suddenly be able to move to the suburbs, and in case you haven't been keeping up for the past twenty years, the suburbs themselves are suffering, as the commuters have no more jobs to which they commute.

[brianbwb-2009]

$500 at today's mprices will buy maybe three pairs of shoes at most, Nike sport shoes are well over 100$, and I just know that if you heard that Mrs. Obama attended a state function in worn out shoes, you would be beeyotching about that, too. You neos just cannot accept that America is changing, but it is, either with, or without you.

Btw, did you check whether this successful attorney paid for them with her own money or not?

Of course you didn't, you don't even care, it is enough that she is a "minority", to you she is not supposed to be able to buy new shoes.

[38654ob]

Bulldoze them and let those areas return to woodland. Best answer.

[american_11-2009]

Our Politicians keep telling us our Immigration laws are broken and we need an comprehensive solution, which are code words for Amnesty, our Immigration Laws are not broken, what is broken is our Political system when we elect Corrupt/Pandering politicians that puts votes ahead of American Citizens or the future of this Nation!

Our government fails the most basic, primary task of government, namely to protect this Country and its Citizens from invasion and enforce its laws.

They refuse to abide by our Constitution, refuse to enforce our Immigration Laws and refuse to honor their Oath of Office!

Our Government, past & present, Republican & Democrat, have allowed the invasion of 20 to 40 million criminals and uneducated peons which is the largest invasion of any Nation, at any time, by any means & in direct violation of Article IV, Section IV of our Constitution, this refusal to abide by our Constitution or enforce our Immigration Laws should be classified as Treason of the most foul kind, & is grounds for impeachment & trials for Treason!

Not only have they allowed the invasion, they force American tax payers to pay Billions on Billions of dollars to provide Welfare, Prison cells, Educate the invaders numerous spawn, and free medical care, at the same time the invading horde break numerous laws and massive document fraud & are destroying our schools, hospitals, communities, culture and standard of living while Robbing, Raping, Killing & Assaulting American Citizens at an rate the terrorist can only dream about.

Recent statements in Mexico from both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary something needs to be done. "Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers, and civilians," she said.

But no mention or concern of the estimated 25 Americans killed per day or the 10,s of thousands victims of Assault, Robberies, Rapes, Identify thief, and other assorted crimes committed by the invading horde of Illegal Aliens from Mexico on American citizens each year!

This government & most of the Politicians in Wash. DC have for years demonstrated an complete lack of concern for the devastation and havoc caused by the Massive invasion, indeed most have worked much harder on the behalf of the invading horde than they have for the American citizens that elected them!

Our Politicians & our Government does more harm & are an more serious threat to American Citizens & the future of this Nation than any of the terrorist organizations or diseases like Mexican Swine flu!

[cdgreg]

Let's see now....We have empty slums since the 1980's and 1990's when the economy took a turn upward. Is it possible that the reason for the empty housing is that people who lived in the low rent district suddenly found that they could afford to live in the suburbs? Maybe the empty housing is not a sign that the world is crashing down, but rather that people in the late 80's and 90's were actually succeeding at the American Dream of rising above what they were born into?

[Expat type]

I suspect that most of the unoccupied places suffer from serious property tax. Building all the grandiose projects kills the taxpayers. Cities should have incorporation articles forbidding spending on anything but streets and basic utility services. Contracts for police and firemen have bankrupted Vallejo. There is a lesson there for those who are not brain dead. Stop the cities and counties from wasteful spending, and you will help americans. No one should lose their home for property taxes.

[ianlou]

Here's a thought--all those illegal Mexicans who want amensty--tell them they can become US citizens if they live in Flint or Buffalo for 20 years.
Posted by johnb8888 at 4:55 AM : May 5, 2009

Illegals is the only problem we don't have in northern states because Illegals don't like Snow!

You can keep them in the sun belt.

[johnb8888]

Here's a thought--all those illegal Mexicans who want amensty--tell them they can become US citizens if they live in Flint or Buffalo for 20 years.

[slantedview]

In Indianapolis we have a new stadium and a professional football team, absolutely stunning beautiful downtown with Circle Center Mall, White River canal and brick paved streets. BUILT ON THE BACKS OF THE TAXPAYER WITH UNFAIR PROPERTY TAX INCREASES, doubling every five years until the average homeowner just can't afford to pay anymore. Get out of downtown and tour the "real" city where the people live.

Unfortunately the cost to the taxpayer for all this magnificence and beauty is driving them out of the city and the urban blight is is a disgrace to the people who are allowed to plan and tax and come up with proposals that finance everything to build this city by increasing the taxes of the "working poor" to the point they can't afford to live here anymore.

That - and the airport being allowed to gobble up all the neighborhoods and land they wanted in Wayne township, driving people out of the area and tearing down homes where people used to pay taxes... now the ones that are left in the area have to make up the difference - the airport doesn't pay the property tax on empty lots that the homeowners do. Look in every neighborhood in Indianapolis and you will find three to five empty houses on every block.

Now the airport has moved and what used to be a thriving area is a barren wasteland. It's a parking lot ghost town. The city did this to itself... or I should say... the civic leaders did this to us.

Greedy government is the cause for this and we voted one mayor out last time and the governor should have went with him.

Are there any decent elected officials in office that actually put the people first? I think not.