Started on Mar 22, 2011 by Dawn Arrington
On a drive home my husband and I turned up Mt. Auburn a side street on Cleveland's East Side. What did we see? Abandoned and condemned house after abandoned and condemned house and structure. I immediately called a friend who has more knowledge on the sub
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We truly have an issue with abandoned properties in our core city and inner ring suburbs and not enough resources to truly deal with the problem. The City of Cleveland as steadily increased its demolition budget, but we still can't get pace with the number of abandoned properties.
They are not only visually unappealing but pose safety and security threats to our neighborhoods as well. Boarding up homes helps, but only serves as a minor deterrent. We dont have enough police to watch all the homes. I guess the best thing we can do is to band together as a community and police ourselves. See something Say something is the old mantra right? An engaged community is a strong deterrent, that's what made neighborhood block groups so popular. So how do we institute something of this nature in neighborhoods where there are few residents left?
TogglePosted Mar 22, 2011
Saying something isn't always enough and block clubs do help but many times the people who need to be involved are not. I have a family member who is a police officer in Cleveland for the 4th district. I asked him about the abandoned homes and he said that they are a real big problem for him to get his job done. I'm not sure what the solution is outside of tearing them down and many municipalities do not have the budget to cover the expense.
My next step is to contact my councilman and inquire what exactly is his strategic plan for the numerous abandoned homes. I would like to see some type of street by street effort (at this time I don't know if that is happening)
TogglePosted Mar 23, 2011
Can anyone shed some light on the process in which structures get condemned and torn down?
TogglePosted Mar 23, 2011
Dawn, you are taking all the right steps. Depending on which ward in the city you live in, your councilperson may be able to provide you with a list of targeted teardown properties and explain their strategy.
TogglePosted Mar 28, 2011
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What are your suggestions to solving the problem? Many of the homes are condemned and are in a state of disrepair. The issue is allocation of resources and figuring out a strategy to improve some of the hardest hit areas.
TogglePosted Mar 22, 2011