Vacant homes in our communities are a real, and growing problem!
A recent article about the home at 812 Everett Drive (in Lansing Michigan, not Snohomish county) brought me back to thinking about it again. I posted a week or so about how banks are putting the expense of maintaining vacant and foreclosed on homes over onto the cities and avoiding paying their bills. In this case, the home had been vacant since 2006 and since then the city has been forced to be the caretaker of the exterior, cutting the overgrown grass, pulling trash from the yard.How do we let banks get away with this? What do we do to solve the problem of vacant homes in our neighborhoods?
Many areas are drafting legislation to force property owners to maintain properties, but I am betting the banks will fall back on their tactic of almost foreclosing so people move out, but then not finishing so they don't have to take ownership of the property.
Who has a great solution for all the vacant homes in our communities? How about we stop giving money to corporations and start giving grants to local charities to buy, renovate and then rent out these properties to low income families or senior citizens? That sounds good to me since that would put people back to work fixing the homes, and give people that need shelter a place to live!
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