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Wednesday, August 26, 2020

To be successful, local neighborhood stabilization programs need a packaged set of robust remedies: Part 2

This piece is mostly focused on "weak market" neighborhoods, although even strong markets have properties that lag because of poor management, lack of means to maintain properties, non-market factors, etc.

As the report Vacant Properties: The True Costs to Communities by the National Vacant Properties Campaign makes clear, vacant properties and I would extend this argument to nuisance properties more generally, have negative effects on neighborhoods in terms of property value reduction, creating unsafe conditions, diminishing perceptions and identity, reducing quality of life, and often, spreading failure and vacancy to other nearby properties.

That's why focused neighborhood improvement programs need to be able to address vacant and nuisance properties in practical ways, at a velocity that typically needs to be much faster than cities and counties are normally capable of acting.

This piece is part two of a series.

-- "The need for a "national" neighborhood stabilization program comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts: Part I (Overall)"
-- "To be successful, local neighborhood stabilization programs need a packaged set of robust remedies: Part 2"
-- "Creating 'community safety partnership neighborhood management programs as a management and mitigation strategy for public nuisance programs: Part 3 (like homeless shelters)"
-- "A case in Gloucester, Massachusetts as an illustration of the need for systematic neighborhood monitoring and stabilization initiatives: Part 4 (the Curcuru Family)"
-- "Local neighborhood stabilization programs: Part 5 | Adding energy conservation programs, with the PUSH Buffalo Green Development Zone as a model," 2021
 
Adding remedies and other regulatory supports to neighborhood improvement efforts: the lesson from historic preservation.  One of the key things I learned from being involved in historic preservation in DC, and then comparing DC to other places, is the importance of "remedies."

When historic preservation efforts are successful it is because communities have already put into place legal processes for nominating, landmarking, and protecting buildings.

More often than not, activism not backed up by legal processes providing opportunities for protections fails.  See "Preservation advocacy may be more successful when companies are vulnerable to public pressure: Baltimore County vs. Fairfax County, Virginia vs. Robbinsdale, Minnesota," 2016).

Remedies are legal protections or requirements. In order to preserve buildings, you need legal protections. Without them (remedies) you have no recourse, no ability to reshape the process ("Without remedies there's nothing you can do: historic preservation in Chicago and DC," 2014; "The real historic preservation lesson from DC's Uptown Theater is about legal protections and remedies, not activism," 2017).

DC has a very strong local preservation law, making it a lot easier (but not perfect) to save buildings. But it applies only to areas that are designated as historic districts.

But while historically designated neighborhoods have strong protections and a process for residents to weigh in as a matter of course, neighborhoods that aren't historically designated have limited protections or "remedies" available to support neighborhood stabilization, when faced with neglect by building owners.

Problem Property Audit, page 1 - University of MemphisAddressing problems in a systematic manner.  Neighborhood improvement organizations need remedies in order to be able to address vacant properties and other nuisances (Development Handbook for Neighborhoods, Center for Neighborhoods, Minneapolis; Texas Problem Properties Toolkit, Community Development Clinic, U Texas Law School; How Can Municipalities Confront the Vacant Property Challenge? A Toolkit).

Below is a proposed set of remedies that need to be packaged together by local jurisdictions to facilitate neighborhood stabilization through the creation of local initiatives comparable to Pennsylvania's Elm Street program or city-wide programs like Baltimore's Healthy Neighborhoods program.

Start with data collection (and mapping).  Of course, groups need to start out by collecting data on their neighborhood, to identify problems and opportunities.

I've mentioned the Problem Property Audit.  More recently a software program and app called BuildingBlocks has been created to do this.

Make action plans.  And create neighborhood action plans based on survey data and public planning sessions identifying needs and opportunities too, not just problems.  People need hope.  But they also need to be able to help develop the agenda and program for the organization, especially if you want them to participate in carrying out.  That's necessary, because fully staff driven efforts are costly and can become disconnected from resident interests over time.

There are many models of ways to engage residents in planning and programming, as discussed in the four part series "Basic planning building blocks for "community" revitalization programs that most cities haven't packaged."

I also argue that as part of the creation of plans, consensus priorities should be set, and when "community benefits agreements" are triggered by development projects, required proffers should be directed towards those priorities.

Remedies

Neighborhood revitalization planning coordination overlay.  When I went to a conference in Cleveland in 2002, I learned that they have a zoning overlay, called a "Business Revitalization District Overlay", which provides an additional level of review for planning and building matters in commercial districts that the city targeted for improvement.  (A handful of other communities have similar processes.  But it's pretty rare.)

This was to address design and other issues, to ensure that property owners weren't operating at cross purposes in terms of the city's interest and program for improving the commercial district.

This kind of approach needs to be extended to weak market neighborhoods with community improvement programs operating in a manner comparable to the Main Street program for commercial districts, but for neighborhoods, such as the Pennsylvania Elm Street program.

WRT commercial district revitalization, I've described how early on in my involvement I was influenced by the creation of Design and Development Guidelines by the North Park Main Street program, when they created their program in the late 1990s.  Residentially-focused improvement programs need to do the same thing.

It's important to be clear about quality and how it matters in terms of sparking quality development on the part of other actors.

Housing (or Property) Courts.  Most regular courts look at housing matters as not particularly important, compared to dealing with major crimes.  Creating housing courts provides a focused way to address property matters with the seriousness they deserve.  I'd consider expanding this from "housing" to "property" because commercial property owners can be problematic as well.

Empowering nonprofits to act via receivership statutes.  Cities and counties may have receivership statutes that allow for government agencies, but not nonprofits, to address nuisance properties.  But typically, these processes are cumbersome and the agencies can be slow to act, allowing problems to fester or get much worse.

But some states, like Ohio and more recently Pennsylvania, have receivership statutes that allows nonprofit organizations to petition the court to take over a property to cure its nuisance.  Neighborhood associations and preservation organizations are motivated to do this to stabilize properties and/or neighborhoods.  To get receivership authority, the plaintiff has to provide a plan to cure the nuisance.  Once the nuisance is abated, the Housing Court can clear title and award the property to the nonprofit.

(Note that standing in the Ohio statute is not just afforded to nonprofits, but to local governments, residents living within 500 feet of the property, and tenants.)

Typically, properties are then sold to people who agree to live in the property, with easements to maintain quality.  Often the properties are sold at a loss--but the point is to stabilize the property and the neighborhood not to make money.

Eminent Domain.  Alternatively, eminent domain authority can be used to seize properties that are nuisances.  But this is more complicated, and sometimes can be politically fraught.  ED can be useful  when a property has multiple owners and is hard to determine ownership and clear title.

The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in Roxbury, Boston is noteworthy because it received ED authority to seize vacant properties in its neighborhood back in the 1980s and 1990s.

I am somewhat leery of this because there are as many "bad" community development corporations as there are good ones.  But it is a tool that needs to be considered, provided it is associated with checks and balances, which a property court could ensure ("Make eminent domain fair for all," Boston Globe), 2005).  From the article:
  • Requiring, as Justice Anthony M. Kennedy suggested in his Kelo concurrence, that any exercise of eminent domain for economic development have a primarily public purpose rather than a merely incidental one.
  • Requiring the government to demonstrate the public benefit through a full-scale financial analysis that could be challenged in court.
  • Requiring that eminent domain not be used for a solely fiscal purpose and that it instead must be part of a comprehensive land use plan.
  • Requiring that the affected neighborhood have adequate participation in the planning process, a right that would be backed up by state-provided technical assistance upon the neighborhood's request.
  • Requiring that the state demonstrate good-faith dealing with the owners of the property targeted for taking prior to exercising the eminent domain power
A supportive form of Code Enforcement.  Code enforcement aims to make property owners maintain their buildings, with the threat of fines.

From "City demolishes nuisance house," Albany Democrat-Herald. Caption: A crew from Greg Payne Construction demolishes an abandoned house Monday behind Sunrise Park in Albany, Oregon. Photo: David Patton, Democrat-Herald

Properties beyond the pale get "condemnation notices" which usually leads to demolition, because the property owner lacks the cash or the property "isn't worth" fixing.  But a vacant lot is merely a different kind of nuisance.

According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies, the reason that most people don't "maintain their property"is lack of funds.  Code enforcement and escalating fines too frequently push people without much money into a negative spiral (The Power & Proximity of Code Enforcement: a Tool for Equitable Neighborhoods; "A.G. Schneiderman Announces Awards To 18 Cities And Towns For Tools To Address And Transform Problem Homes And Buildings," press release).

I argue for a different kind of process, using code enforcement as an engagement process, shifting from a punitive approach to one focused on helping the property owner to fix up the property.

Volunteer assistance: Amish barn raisings/Rebuilding Together/Habitat for Humanity/Apprentice training.  One way to do this is to create volunteer programs that provide assistance, alongside more traditional contracting, using the idea of "Amish barn raisings," where people in the community come together to help another family build a barn ("What happens at an Amish barn raising?," Amish America).

Rebuilding Together is a national program organized through local chapters that, using volunteers--both professionals and amateurs--to fix up houses.  Habitat for Humanity does something similar, but building houses for lower income families.

There is an educational film about Columbus, Ohio called "Flag Wars." A neighborhood close to Downtown, big old Victorian houses, that "the gays" started moving into to, and the tension this created with existing black residents.

Yes, some of the new residents called code enforcement on the legacy residents accentuating differences.

But to me, I wondered why instead didn't they create volunteer initiatives to help people fix their properties. These were monster properties that the average houseowner, let alone a poor household, would find challenging. They could have built social and community capital instead of diminishing it.

Before and after.

One initiative I wrote about years ago was "Paint Ypsilanti," which helped homeowners paint their properties, in an effort to spruce up the neighborhood.  From a now defunct website:
"Paint Ypsilanti is founded on the simple premise that we want to increase the vibrancy of our neighborhoods by providing assistance to residents unable to keep up financially and/or physically with the maintenance for their homes. After completing a successful pilot project in 2013, the program has plans to expand and hopes to provide paint, landscaping materials and labor for 20 project recipients in 2014."
Another option would be to work with local community colleges and their building trades training programs, and add "historic preservation" related training, with work in the field on houses in need of repair.

The Boston Globe has an article about initiatives in the Chinatown business and residential community to build community through clean ups and mural painting, as the community has languished as a result of the pandemic ("Chinatown cleans up, geting ready for its next act").  Although I argue organizations should be doing these kinds of activities on an ongoing basis anyway, to build neighborhood pride, community improvement, and volunteer involvement.

Ability to Sue Owners of Nuisance Properties.  Sometimes people just aren't reasonable and you need sticks to be able to get them to the table and to work with you.

This house at 1144 North Sixth Street has a history of code violations dating to 1998.


In Illinois, the Echo Park Neighborhood Association in Springfield has sued property owners to cure nuisances or to put the property in receivership as an alternative ("Neighborhood sues owners of abandoned house," Illinois Times).  But without the existence of a receivership statute already, it would be hard to be successful in court.

Revolving funds to support property maintenance and improvement.  Another issue is funding.  For example, historic preservation groups will organize funds to assist homeowners in maintaining their properties to historic standards, which can be more expensive.

-- Preservation Basics: Preservation Revolving Funds, National Trust for Historic Preservation

As funds are paid back, they are lent out again.  The same goes for houses that are rehabilitated and then resold.  The proceeds go back to the fund.

The City of Cleveland, leveraging the monies it had on deposit at local banks, working with the Cleveland Restoration Society, created a funding source for home improvement loans (Heritage Home Fund).  In the 28 years of the program, more than $76 million has been loaned out to almost 2,000 projects.

Community reinvestment requirements for banks can be another source of funds, along with local foundations and other sources.

Property Tax Surcharge on vacant properties.  DC and some other cities have a property tax surcharge assessed against vacant properties.  In DC, it's 5x the normal rate.  In terms of fostering building maintenance and improvement, this kind of stick only really works in strong real estate markets, because property values for maintained properties remain high.

In weak real estate markets, a surcharge at this rate will lead a property owner to demolish the property, thereby "curing the nuisance" and also significantly reducing property taxes simultaneously.

Property tax reductions on vacant properties.  By contrast, some places, such as Toronto have tax reduction programs for vacant properties.  In a strong market, this encourages aberrant behavior but in weak markets, it could encourage property maintenance instead of demolition.  Tax relief should only be awarded in return for public benefits, including abating nuisances.

Furthermore, in terms of tax reductions, property owners shouldn't be rewarded with lower taxes, if properties have become less productive through poor management and operation.  A case in point would be the management of the Doral Resort by the Trump Organization ("Trump's Doral resort loses property tax appeal," South Florida Sun-Sentinel; "Property appraiser reduces value of Trump's Miami hotel," Miami Herald).

14 comments:

  1. San Antonio's iconic 'shotgun' houses unlock new future with renovation program.

    https://www.mysanantonio.com/real-estate/article/renovation-shotgun-house-west-side-san-antonio-16236700.php

    6/11/2021

    ReplyDelete
  2. "How to organize a block cleanup in Philadelphia"

    How to get free supplies from the city, mobilize neighbors, and plan a successful block cleanup.

    https://www.inquirer.com/philly-tips/block-cleanup-philadelphia-20210720.html

    "Philly spends $48 million a year to clean up litter, Pa. report finds"

    https://www.inquirer.com/science/climate/philadelphia-pennsylvania-litter-recycling-20200206.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. What Pittsburgh is doing wrt litter, including the use of an app for recording litter data called Litterati.

    https://www.post-gazette.com/news/health/2022/01/30/health-litter-Pittsburgh-Litterati-Christopher-Mitchell-cigarette-butts-junk-food/stories/202201300018

    ReplyDelete
  4. This is a smaller scale program, called "selective rehab," for properties that need some rehab but not full gut, with public intervention, to keep the properties habitable but also affordable.

    https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/jim-roos-was-not-popular-in-city-hall-but-backers-say-his-push-for-affordable/article_e121ad7f-6a62-5309-99d2-0a34da3bcf5a.html

    "im Roos was not popular in City Hall, but backers say his push for affordable housing in St. Louis has merit"

    2/8/2022

    The buzzword in the industry is “selective rehab” — basically, finding properties that need substantial work and updates but not gut renovations.

    “Our approach produces very good, quality units for roughly one-third of the cost of gut rehab or new construction,” Roos said outside a four-family on Osage Street that his nonprofit acquired last year and is in the process of updating. “It helps people that need it, and it’s efficient.” ...

    Roos said Boyd, like many other longtime renters, can be like “a frog in hot water” and not notice as their homes fall down around them. It doesn’t take too much public subsidy to nonprofits like his to make improvements to neglected rental properties that can make a big difference both for tenants and the neighborhoods they live in. ...

    Those in the affordable housing and community development space say Roos has a point about the need for more selective rehabs. Some have even joined his cause.

    “My experience is this is a way and an additional tool that can be done for community revitalization and could have a major impact for lower-income people to have good rental housing that’s properly managed as well as having a positive impact on the neighborhoods where it’s located,” said Jim Lutz, who led housing development projects for RISE Community Development for 30 years and now serves on Sanctuary in the Ordinary’s board. ...

    Across a neighborhood like Dutchtown, among the city’s densest, there are countless properties like the one on Osage Street, said Lutz, a former resident of the neighborhood for 20 years. But there really isn’t yet the public financing infrastructure to help nonprofits fix up the structures before they deteriorate to the point of needing a gut rehab. Banks can be hesitant to lend in certain parts of town.

    “It’s all conventional (loans),” Lutz said. “Other than that, if you can get something from the Affordable Housing Commission, and this is unusual that they did this, but other than that there is no place to go.”

    Selective rehabs have been how the Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corp. has stabilized buildings and maintained affordable units in the neighborhoods where it works. But it has been able to obtain conventional loans because of the strength of the neighborhoods in which it works. ...

    He pointed to a new loan fund recently launched by RISE, which aims to finance small developers that struggle to obtain capital. Funds like that, Spencer hopes, will help support selective rehab projects across the city in neighborhoods where obtaining loans is more difficult.

    Lutz said he hopes the city establishes a revolving loan fund to support nonprofits doing smaller rehabs. Other nonprofit developers, he believes, would quickly get on board.

    ReplyDelete
  5. DCist: This Home Repair Program Has Kept DC Families Waiting For Years.
    https://dcist.com/story/22/03/01/dc-house-fix-accessibility-dhcd/

    ReplyDelete
  6. The University City District, a BID in Philadelphia, has an initiative called Project Rehab, which works with commercial and residential properties to save distressed properties from demolition, when properties are particularly distressed.

    https://www.universitycity.org/projectrehab

    The Philadelphia Inquirer: A ‘Mr. Fixit’ helps West Philly residents and businesses cut through red tape.

    https://www.inquirer.com/real-estate/tangled-titles-west-philly-rehab-vacant-properties-20220315.html

    ReplyDelete
  7. Tampa Bay Times: St. Petersburg is transforming vacant lots into affordable housing.

    https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/2022/04/07/st-petersburg-is-transforming-vacant-lots-into-affordable-housing

    In 2014, as the city emerged from the Great Recession, he began combining that passion with an approach to improving neighborhoods by dealing aggressively with owners of derelict houses and vacant properties. “I was not a tenured government employee, and I probably still don’t think like the average government employee,” he says. “I think like a businessperson.”

    Corbett started compiling an inventory of the boarded- up and vacant properties that dotted the city. He counted 830 homes that either needed major repairs or had deteriorated so much that they needed to be demolished. ...

    But as dilapidated houses were torn down or refurbished, many lots remained vacant and neglected, eroding surrounding property values and the local tax base. Basic maintenance often fell to city workers, draining time and resources. “In the summertime, we’d have to mow the grass twice a month religiously,” Corbett says. “We called them dead or zombie properties because no one wanted to touch them.”

    Many cities deal with the zombie-lot problem with an approach that some call “file and forget” — they slap code-enforcement liens on neglected lots and hope that real estate values eventually rise enough to make the owners want to get out of arrears and either sell, develop or refinance the property.

    Instead, Corbett went after the owners of the zombie lots more aggressively, using a tactic that cities typically shy away from — foreclosure. In 2016, he identified the owners of dozens of empty lots, mostly in historically black neighborhoods south of downtown. Often, the property owners owed more in taxes or fines than the properties were worth. “You might have $40,000 in liens on a lot that was worth $20,000,” he says. ...

    Corbett reckoned that the firm never had any real interest in owning land in St. Petersburg. And as the company continued to pile up code violations, he proposed that the city foreclose on its properties.

    “That’s how this whole thing started,” he says. “My thought was, let’s foreclose. It’s not like we’re kicking some family out of their house. This is literally a large company that doesn’t care anything about this city, and one of two things will happen: They’ll either pay their liens, or their properties will be sold and someone else will get them.” ...

    The city responded by trying to turn some foreclosures into first homes for local residents instead of selling the lots to developers. Under the program, the city acquires an abandoned lot at auction, clears the title and gives it to a non-profit developer. The developer, in turn, builds a home and sells it to a lower-income family. So far, the city has acquired 50 lots this way, and nine houses have been built and sold to first time home buyers.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Not limited to historic buildings, Greensboro, NC has a "Good Repair Ordinance."

    Commonly referred to as the "Good Repair Ordinance," the ordinance adopts the International Property Maintenance Code as a guideline for minimum standards for non-residential buildings and structures. It also defines the investigation and enforcement process for bringing structures into compliance.

    https://www.greensboro-nc.gov/departments/neighborhood-development/code-compliance/good-repair-ordinance

    2. Note that cities can also misuse code enforcement, target properties of people out of favor, or use fines as a significant revenue stream.

    6/6/2022

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  9. New Jersey Clean Communities program provides support to litter abatement to NJ communities.

    https://www.njclean.org/

    ReplyDelete
  10. Chicago has a Neighborhood Opportunity Fund, which uses money generated by downtown development to fund commercial projects in the city’s underserved neighborhoods.

    https://neighborhoodopportunityfund.com

    ReplyDelete
  11. West Side organization kicks off program to buy, rehab, resell neglected homes

    https://www.expressnews.com/business/real-estate/article/westside-prosper-west-san-antonio-casa-bella-18153891.php

    6/20/23

    A nonprofit economic development organization is looking to buy and renovate abandoned single-family homes and commercial buildings on the West Side, an area that historically has been neglected and where fears of gentrification are looming as the development downtown ripples outward.

    Prosper West San Antonio bought a vacant two-bedroom, one-bathroom home along West Cesar E. Chavez Boulevard in November for about $85,000 and put about $110,000 into rehabilitating it, which included redoing the foundation and the roof and taking it down to the studs, some of which had to be replaced due to termite damage.

    The organization then sold it this spring for roughly $170,000 to a buyer participating in the city of San Antonio’s down payment assistance program. Prosper West used a line of credit from Texas Capital Bank and a grant from the John L. Santikos fund at the San Antonio Area Foundation to finance the project, the first in its Casa Bella program.

    ... “This way, we ensure local control. We can ensure the kinds of businesses, the kinds of uses that we want, on the West Side as a community and be able to know that we can preserve that long term, including the affordability of it, so that even as things change on the West Side, the more properties that we have, the more options we have to be able to provide affordability in these areas,” Gonzales said.

    ... The near West Side has long suffered from a lack of investment and been plagued by poverty. Cut off by a highway and railroad tracks, it's home to the Bexar County jail, the Haven for Hope homeless shelter and government offices. Compared with other neighborhoods bordering downtown, there’s been little new development.

    But property values and rents are rising, and the area’s proximity to downtown is fueling concerns that longtime residents will eventually be pushed out.

    ... Gonzales sees the Casa Bella program and fund for commercial properties as avenues for bringing new life to neglected structures. Acquiring property is a challenge because Prosper West is sometimes competing with investors or trying to persuade owners who are hoping for higher offers, Gonzales said.

    ReplyDelete
  12. https://thelandcle.org/stories/clevlot-website-and-tool-aims-to-streamline-the-process-of-repurposing-clevelands-vacant-land/

    CLEVLOT website and tool aims to streamline the process of repurposing Cleveland’s vacant land

    1/24/24

    https://www.clevlot.org/

    Why so much interest in vacant land? Well, for one thing, there’s a lot of it. In fact, according to presenters at the forum, the city’s vacant lots could cover three airports, with a combined 30,000 lots spanning 6,000 acres. That works out to about one-eighth of the city. Be sure to bring out that handy fact next time you’re trying to sell your in-laws on moving here (or not).

    Cleveland has for decades been saddled with vacant land that creates blight, becomes a nuisance for crime, litter and other types of negative activity, and costs the city to keep up. The number of lots increased dramatically following the 2008–2009 housing recession, when thousands of homes were demolished and the land ended up being transferred into the city’s land bank.

    Under the current system, land bank applications can take over 60 days to process, according to forum speakers — though often it is taking much longer. The city adds about 600 lots to their inventory every year, while selling around 400. In 2023, the city received 362 land bank applications and processed 171, according to public records provided to The Land. Cleveland’s vacant land crisis continues to grow.

    ... Since the project kickoff in February 2022, WRLC has gathered dozens of stakeholders to identify key challenges to the city’s process for repurposing vacant land. Tim Dehm, planning and design specialist with WRLC, described what the new process would look like for a resident interested in creating a community garden on a vacant lot in their neighborhood.

    “One day, Lucille was invited to attend a vacant land clinic at her local library branch, where an advisor helped her learn more about vacant land reuse,” he told the audience. “Later, she applied online through the land bank’s website, where it was easy to keep track of her application progress. The advisors at the library also introduced her to community members who helped her make a plan and apply for a small grant.”

    ... Under an improved system, people would also have online access to parcel-specific surveys and recommendations for development. For example, lots near fire hydrants may be identified as strong candidates for urban agriculture as they will have access to a water source; lots sitting on top of major utilities may not be a great candidate for tree plantings. With information in one place, residents and community organizations can be more strategic and proactive about land development.

    CLEVLOT would also create a community forum where people can post questions, share ideas, and solve problems together, building systems of mutual support aimed at helping one another. Similarly, the city would encourage local block clubs and resident groups to participate in vacant land planning. Pop-up clinics hosted by libraries would offer experts to provide advice and give feedback on applications in real time. Additionally, libraries would be home to maps, plans, reports, and more, addressing the digital divide and improving access to information.

    CLEVLOT, the Cleveland Vacant Land Opportunity Tool.

    ReplyDelete
  13. https://www.inquirer.com/news/street-cleaning-filthadelphia-mayor-parker-20240314.html

    Mayor Parker’s $246 million plan to clean up ‘Filthadelphia’
    The proposal includes an $11 million pilot for twice weekly trash pickup, 1,500 more “Big Belly” trash cans, crews to tackle illegal dumping, and a plan to seal 900 vacant buildings.

    But nearly half of the overall investment would dramatically expand an existing initiative — $130 million over five years to supercharge Parker’s own “Taking Care of Business” program, or TCB, which previously focused on cleaning commercial corridors.

    The $10 million a year program was created by then-council member Parker in 2019, and is funded through the city’s Commerce Department. That department issues grants to local nonprofits, which in turn contract with private cleaning providers to manually clean streets and sidewalks along 85 different areas scattered across the city.

    Parker’s new budget would expand the program to cover 140 commercial zones citywide. Budget documents also describe plans to clean residential streets adjacent to commercial areas either through TCB or companion programs run through the city’s municipal Sanitation department.

    Brent Cebul, a University of Pennsylvania history professor who recently wrote a book on public-private partnerships, questioned why the city was not channeling more of street cleaning funds through its own Sanitation Department.

    He said diffusing sanitation funds across dozens of small nonprofits or private subcontractors would politicize the provision of street cleaning services and make public oversight more difficult.

    “Deciding which nonprofits get these contracts will become a political process,” he said. “And it makes it really difficult for citizens to trace all this funding out. … The city government isn’t efficient in a lot of ways, but at least that inefficiency is clear and accountable.”

    ReplyDelete
  14. https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/gun-violence-initiative-northwest-philadelphia-trash-pickup-street-cleaning-20240328.html

    This $818K initiative aims to prevent gun violence in Germantown and Mount Airy with street cleaning

    As the temperature goes up in the warmer months, gun violence tends to rise with it. But a new initiative starting this summer in Mount Airy and Germantown aims to help gun violence continue to fall in the latter half of the year.

    The Safe Steps Northwest initiative will provide weekly cleaning of 335 city blocks in Mount Airy and Germantown with demonstrated histories of gun violence and persistent trash, based upon the city’s public data on shootings and litter. It is funded by a $818,000 grant from the state’s Commission on Crime and Delinquency’s Violence Intervention and Prevention program.

    Safe Steps relies upon the conclusions of recent academic studies in Philadelphia, such as one conducted by University of Pennsylvania researchers, that cleaning and fixing up vacant lots and city blocks is correlated with lower rates of gun violence in the surrounding areas.

    “It has been proven that blight elimination works to reduce gun violence,” said Haywood, whose district covers Northwest Philadelphia. His office originally proposed the block-cleaning initiative for Northwest Philly and led a pilot program over the summer of 2022, which covered only eight blocks and was funded by private individual donations.

    Haywood said that during the pilot initiative, individual community members volunteered to help out after they learned more about what was happening. He hopes that kind of connectivity happens this summer.

    ========
    https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia/philadelphia-crime-rate-gun-violence-2023-20231230.html

    Philly’s gun violence declined in 2023. It still remains at levels well above the recent past

    Gun violence has dropped by large numbers, police statistics show. But shootings and homicides remain at levels not seen for decades since before they spiked amid the pandemic.

    ReplyDelete