|How vacant homes and lots in Syracuse affect a neighborhood|
In this video by staff photographer Peter Chen, Phil Prehn, a community organizer with Syracuse United Neighbors, gave The Post-Standard a tour of the vacant homes and lots in portions of Syracuse's South Side and talked about their impact on the surrounding neighborhoods. Prehn estimates that there are more than 1,300 vacant homes and 3, 400 vacant lots in the city.
Syracuse, NY---In today's Post-Standard, I take a closer look at the vacant housing problem on Syracuse's South Side. Read my story about how the problem is affecting residents.
While neighborhoods on the West and North Sides have their share of boarded up homes, a recent study found that three census tracts on the South Side have the highest concentration of vacant houses in Central New York.
One in five of the homes are vacant in an area that straddle Midland Avenue and South Salina Street, according to an Associated Press analysis of data collected from the U.S. Postal Service and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.In the neighborhood hit the hardest, 23. 1 percent of the homes are vacant.
Residents and neighborhood activists are not surprised because vacant housing is one of the major problems affecting South Side.
Drive through any block on the South Side, and you're likely to see a vacant house. I counted seven in the 200 to 300 blocks of West Beard Avenue.
There are 1,370 vacant houses in the city. Residents say vacant houses drive their property values down and attract drug dealers, prostitutes and gun violence.
City officials are addressing the problem through demolition and rehabilitation. The city and some of the nonprofit housing agencies are also building new homes on some of the vacant lots.
The problem is not unique to Syracuse. All across the Northeast and Midwest, communities are struggling with vacant houses. Homes became vacant as people moved away and some landlords simply walked away.
Henry and Mary Vaughn have a nice house in the 100 block of East Borden Ave. They bought the adjacent lot from the city so they could take care of it. The city tore down the house after a fire, the couple said.
The city got rid of that house, but there's another boarded up house near the vacant lot. They couple have lived on the street since 1970.
The boarded-up house has been for about 20 years, Henry, 75, told me.
"It makes the area look ugly, trashy,'' Mary, 69, said.
I found one vacant house or more on every block I toured in the targeted area. Residents with nice homes said they don't like living next to vacant houses, but they can't afford to move from a place that has been their home for decades.
There were no vacant houses in the 500 block of West Colvin Street when Sharon Jones moved there 10 years ago in one of the two new homes Syracuse Model Neighborhood built on the block. Today, there are two vacant houses across the street and two others down the street.
The vacant houses is a hangout for neighborhood children, said Sharon, 44.
"I don't think I'll be able to sell this house because of the neighborhood,'' she said. "The vacant houses outnumber the pretty decent homes in the neighborhood.''