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Abandoned properties could be saved by government funds

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Lynette Salyer talked about the foreclosure next door in her Kettering neighborhood. “For instance, right now the grass needs to be mowed, and HUD’s only going to come out twice a month to take care of it

Staff photo by Teesha McClam Lynette Salyer talked about the foreclosure next door in her Kettering neighborhood. “For instance, right now the grass needs to be mowed, and HUD’s only going to come out twice a month to take care of it".

By Ken McCall, Staff Writer Updated 10:59 AM Monday, August 17, 2009

Local officials are hoping a “once-in-a-lifetime” shot of money from the federal government will allow them to stop the housing decay in some neighborhoods.

Communities in Montgomery, Greene and Clark counties — including Dayton, Kettering and Fairborn — have received or are applying for more than $76 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Funds.

Money from the programs, originally created under the Bush administration and continued under President Obama, must be spent to either demolish, rehab, redevelop or help people buy properties that are abandoned or in foreclosure.

The first wave of funds has already arrived. Contracts are being signed to begin demolition, buy foreclosed properties and set up home buyer assistance programs.

In the first round Dayton got $7.7 million, Montgomery County $6 million and Kettering $795,000. Communities in Greene and Clark County received another $1.9 million.

“We’ve never had, at least not since the early ’80s, this kind of money flowing from the federal government that we can spend on neighborhood stabilization,” said Aaron Sorrell, manager of housing and neighborhood development for the city of Dayton.

The need is there. Montgomery County alone is estimated to have 36,000 vacant housing units, which puts the residential vacancy rate at more than 14 percent.

A real estate market with a 5 percent vacancy rate is considered to be in balance, said Doug Harnish, president of Gem Public Sector Services. To make matters worse, a recent study Harnish conducted for local governments predicts that the number of vacant and abandoned homes will swell to 48,000 by 2013.

“In eight years, we’ve gone from 19,000 to 36,000 (vacancies) and in another five we’ll go from 36,000 to 48,000 unless we do something to stem that tide,” Harnish said.

A consortium of area governments applied for another $60 million in the program’s second round, which was part of the Obama administration’s Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. They find out next month how much they’ll get, if any.

Tom Robillard, Kettering’s director of planning and development, said he’s hoping the money will “make a dent” in preserving and rehabilitating homes.

“We’re hoping that this intervention will prevent those neighborhoods from falling into a state of decline that is unrecoverable for a neighborhood,” he said.

Join us at the 'Facing the Mortgage Crisis' forum

The 90-minute forum sponsored by the Dayton Daily News, Think TV and WYSO Public Radio will be held at 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 20, at the Cox Ohio Media Center, 1611 S. Main St., Dayton.

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