From the sacbee.com:
The same industry whose lax lending standards led to the economic downturn is now being blamed by local officials for letting neighborhoods rot.
Those on the front lines of the battle for Sacramento neighborhoods say many banks and other lenders are either unable or unwilling to handle the mass of houses left vacant by the foreclosure crisis.
Many derelict houses are owned by lenders. Others are sitting in limbo. Lenders have begun foreclosure proceedings but haven’t taken title, and the families who lived in the homes have gone.
Drive around one of the neighborhoods hardest hit – Oak Park – and the scope of the problem becomes evident. “We’re in the thick of it now,” Melanson said, driving slowly up 21st Avenue, pointing out the boarded-up houses dotting the block. “That one. That one. That one. Another one over there.”
To deal with the problem, the Sacramento City Council passed a vacant building ordinance in early 2007, beefing up penalties for owners who let vacant properties decay That led to the formation of a special unit within the Code Enforcement Department to minimize the blight.
Melanson heads the unit and commands five officers. Their only job: responding to vacant building complaints. Since September 2007, the unit has closed 1,750 vacant building cases and now has 450 open cases. The crush shows no signs of letting up.
Squatters are a recurring problem. Some even carry around their own deadbolts, which they install on vacant homes. During a check on the 3200 block of 21st Avenue, Caluya found a half naked man inside. His name is Sou Chao, and Caluya had chased him away from vacant buildings four times before.
Caluya said he wouldn’t mind the homeless sleeping in the empty buildings, but there is a liability issue. Many squatters use candles or build fires in the homes. In the past year there have been three fires and two home explosions in vacant Oak Park buildings, Caluya said.
Homeless people moving into houses working people would like to buy AT THE RIGHT PRICE.
If banks weren’t given our tax dollars via tarp or whatever new way the think of to scam the gov. They would have gone broke and been FORCED to liquidate assets at market prices that working people could afford.
Appraise the value of a derelict and blighted home at zero dollars and seize it at that value using eminent domain. Then either offer them cheap to buyers who agree to rehab and inhabit or just bulldoze them and open neighborhood gardens or parks.
Of course the strategy in #2 is being tried in Flint MI, where the town is downsizing. The problem in Ca is that the properties are not contigious so that you can’t re-introduce orchards at economic scale. (Or perhaps vinyards). Detroit keeps talking about it but are not able to come up with the money to move the stragglers.
I like GeneK’s idea – bulldozing won’t work on a parcel by parcel basis, but you can bet there are buyers out there if those houses are offered at the right price.
You’d also have to make the buy conditional on the owner staying there 5 years. If the owner for some reason needs to sell within the 5 years, the city buys the property back at the same price as was paid for it. That will keep the flippers out.