City Officials and Volunteers are Fighting the Blight of Foreclosures

November 11th, 2009 | Tags: Foreclosures

Officials and volunteers are together to fight foreclosures

The city officials helped by volunteers have taken a positive approach to fight the blight of foreclosures. The crisis has left behind the curse of vacant houses haunted by fires and vagrants. The helpers are trimming lawns, boarding the doors and windows and fixing damaged fences. Some are cleaning out rubbish and then billing the owners for the labour.

City ordinances have given the push to this work. In most of the states these measures are being taken to tackle the menace of vacant foreclosed properties said James Brooks of National League of Cities. He is the programme director for community development. If these steps were not taken irreversible damage would have been done to the improvements that had been after decades of planning and expenditure.

The cities are attempting to get the financial entities to get involved but meanwhile nobody is sitting back – the public works directors has rushed in with a lawn mower. Brooks said, “Yes - Cities are doing that all over the place because, in some cases, they have to.”

The code enforcement officers in Cape Coral are now doubling up as managers of properties said Frank Cassidy, division manager for code compliance. From January 2007 when foreclosure properties were being tracked here the city staff has trimmed 5,234 lawns in abandoned houses. In 2008 Cape Coral realized $414,000 from liens placed on these foreclosed units. Cassidy commented “We’ve had to change our tactics to deal with violations.”

Over 350 cities have issued ordnances that make it mandatory for banks and other lenders to see to the maintenance of the houses they have taken over. If they fail to comply, fines are imposed informed Diane Roman Fusco speaking for Safeguard Properties. Many of the cities have ruled that the owners of vacant properties would have to register themselves with the authorities to enable proper tracking.

One of the pioneers in this line of action was Chula Vista, in the state of California. It passed rules and imposed fines touching $1,000 for dereliction said Dough Leeper, the division manager of code enforcement of Chula Vista. If the city is compelled to mend any fence or clear up a pool the owners are generally charged $128 per hours. Leeper said “It’s much cheaper for them to do it themselves.” Chula Vista has imposed $1.5 million as fines and has been able to realize $600,000 since the beginning of the programme.

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