By Jacqueline Herships
Fall 2003 NeighborWorks® bright ideas
November
2003 -- "I don’t need a crystal ball to
tell where this neighborhood is headed, I just look at that
house across the street," says a disgusted New Street
homeowner in Orange, a small New Jersey city next to Newark.
"It’s been that way for years, and nobody cares."
Then he adds, "But it doesn’t matter to me, because
I’m moving."
Vacant abandoned buildings are often blamed on the greed of
absentee landlords and speculators, or on local government ineptitude.
But another nasty, equally intransigent problem can contribute
as well. This far less visible culprit is made up of piles of
paper and webs of technical, tangled liens and mortgages, all
tied up in miles of red tape.
First-time homeowner Charise A. Simmons and Wayne Meyer of HANDS,
in front of Simmons'rehabbed home. A pre-rehab view is
at left.
In typical cases, taxes and mortgages go unpaid. Liens mount
up. Municipalities, strapped for cash, sell the liens for unpaid
property taxes in a cycle that repeats year after year, making
the problem worse. In some cases an owner dies without leaving
a will or the owner declares bankruptcy. The jungle of red tape
that develops is so daunting that buildings which might otherwise
be purchased sit empty, becoming targets for vandalism and magnets
for crime. The houses are left to rot.
This tangle of liens, mortgages and legal claims is a major,
relatively unacknowledged source of urban blight.
It became obvious to HANDS – Housing
and Neighborhood Development Services Inc., an Orange, New Jersey,
NeighborWorks® affiliate, that pivotal deteriorated
properties were having an unusually strong negative influence
on neighborhoods. They were driving down property values, attracting
crime, depleting the city treasury, and robbing people of hope
that their neighborhood would ever improve.
Focus on Problem Properties
For all these reasons, HANDS decided to make "problem
properties" the focus of its work.
"We approached the issue from a number of angles,"
explained Patrick Morrissy, HANDS executive director. "First,
our friends in the Neighborhood Reinvestment Mid-Atlantic District
office convinced us to target our work to defined neighborhoods.
Next, we met with community leaders, crime watch groups, and
block associations to find out which properties they thought
were having the most pervasive effect. Our board and staff decided
that we would focus on turning around as many of those ‘pivotal
eyesores'as possible."
"As we began to track every vacant, problem property
in the three target neighborhoods," Morrissy continued,
"it became obvious that, without systemic change, HANDS
could not have a real impact on this problem." It also
became clear that if HANDS couldn’t unlock the encumbered
titles to these targeted properties, redevelopment was impossible.
Ratcheting up the effort, HANDS secured the services of housing
and community development expert, Wayne Meyer, a lawyer, accountant
and real estate Sir Galahad who left the private sector to tackle
the far greater challenge of rescuing cities.
In the three years since Meyer signed on with HANDS, he has
successfully untangled the maze of liens and judgments that
were tying up titles on dozens of properties. This, in turn,
allowed HANDS to rehabilitate 40 of the most visible problem
properties.
One of them, on Princeton Street in Orange, was rehabbed and
sold to first-time homeowner Charise A. Simmons, a 27-year-old
Seton Hall graduate and single mother working as a Family Service
Specialist with the Division of Youth and Family Services.
Over the next two to three years, HANDS plans to redevelop
50 to 60 more, which will bring its total up to 150 rehabilitated
properties since its inception in 1986.
Comprehensive Approach
The goal of systemic change required a comprehensive
approach. It involved assisting the community to understand
the problem and advocate for change, while working with city
hall to more effectively clear titles.
Within the three target neighborhoods, every vacant problem
property was researched. Sharing the research with city hall
and community leaders helped make problem properties a citywide
priority. However, city hall claimed its hands were tied by
existing state law and that, without legislative change, properties
would continue to languish, despite their best efforts.
With legislation, then, a priority, HANDS joined forces with
the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey
– working to pass the Abandoned Properties Rehabilitation
Act. The network www.hcdnnj.org
is a statewide association of more than 250 nonprofit affordable
housing and community development corporations, individuals
and other organizations that support the creation of housing
and economic opportunities for low- and moderate-income community
residents.
According to Meyer, "This law will dramatically reduce
the time it takes to get a nuisance, problem property in the
hands of someone who will rehabilitate it. Time is our enemy
in this struggle, and this bill is the answer."
The bill passed the State Assembly earlier this year 38-0.
It is expected to pass the Senate and secure the Governor’s
signature in November, capping a sustained, two-year struggle
for passage.
The high-impact strategy developed by HANDS is producing significant
results. "We are winning this war," Meyer said.
"When I started here three years ago, we counted over
170 of these troubled properties. We have already dramatically
reduced that number, and our goal is to have them eliminated
completely within the next five years."
Jacqueline Herships (Jherships2@aol.com)
is a publicist, specializing in community relations, lifestyle,
and issues surrounding infrastructure.
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