Promoting America's Urban Frontier
A few ideas about vacancy Issues in Dayton Ohio
Daytonology has a post about the impact of vacant or derelict housing in Dayton, and offers one option on how to deal constructively with the problem.
A Flag Wars, Derelict Houses, and Community Organizing
As you can see by the post below on Adelite Avenue, not all the problem housing in Dayton is under absentee ownership. Perhaps the situation with the owner-occupied houses is similar to Lisa Mitchell in Flag Wars: people would want to fix things up but just can't for various reasons.
Perhaps the solution is to pick a neighborhood where this is becoming an issue but not an insurmountable one, meaning an area that is not seeing wholesale vacancy and abandonment. Then follow this approach
* Organize the target community to address problem housing, using local churches and perhaps community organizations and block watch groups as resources for activism and membership.
* Involved groups like Habitat for Humanity and the ISUS charter school to obtain outside support and assistance, particulary with skilled labor but also perhaps materials
* Organize into work groups to repair owner-occupied nuisance property, and obtain permission from the owners to fix up their property
* Obtain construction materials via money from grants, donations, and perhaps something like an ED/GE grant.
Perhaps this grassroots self-help approach could solve the problem of houses falling into decay due to lack of funds or ability to maintain them. Clearly not everyone in a neighborhood would be interested, but presumably people who are already active in churches and such are already more engaged so maybe more likely to participate.
Read the entire post here.
In addition to programs like the one I posted about at Documenting Dayton, and perhaps together with programs like the one proposed at Daytonology, it's obvious that there are ways to deal with the problem of vacant and decaying properties. City governments are going to have to make sure that proactive and productive grass roots solutions are painless for everyone involved- in other words, a minimum of beauracratic oversight and red tape.
Originally posted on Documenting Dayton
A Flag Wars, Derelict Houses, and Community Organizing
As you can see by the post below on Adelite Avenue, not all the problem housing in Dayton is under absentee ownership. Perhaps the situation with the owner-occupied houses is similar to Lisa Mitchell in Flag Wars: people would want to fix things up but just can't for various reasons.
Perhaps the solution is to pick a neighborhood where this is becoming an issue but not an insurmountable one, meaning an area that is not seeing wholesale vacancy and abandonment. Then follow this approach
* Organize the target community to address problem housing, using local churches and perhaps community organizations and block watch groups as resources for activism and membership.
* Involved groups like Habitat for Humanity and the ISUS charter school to obtain outside support and assistance, particulary with skilled labor but also perhaps materials
* Organize into work groups to repair owner-occupied nuisance property, and obtain permission from the owners to fix up their property
* Obtain construction materials via money from grants, donations, and perhaps something like an ED/GE grant.
Perhaps this grassroots self-help approach could solve the problem of houses falling into decay due to lack of funds or ability to maintain them. Clearly not everyone in a neighborhood would be interested, but presumably people who are already active in churches and such are already more engaged so maybe more likely to participate.
Read the entire post here.
In addition to programs like the one I posted about at Documenting Dayton, and perhaps together with programs like the one proposed at Daytonology, it's obvious that there are ways to deal with the problem of vacant and decaying properties. City governments are going to have to make sure that proactive and productive grass roots solutions are painless for everyone involved- in other words, a minimum of beauracratic oversight and red tape.
Originally posted on Documenting Dayton
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