The issues surrounding abandoned homes in Indianapolis are complex.
Ask community leaders working on the problem how many abandoned homes exist in the city and the number they give is approximately 12,000. Ask the mayor’s office and they’ll lower the figure to 8,000. The difference the city says is not all homes are abandoned; many are just vacant.
“I usually sum it up with this tagline: every abandoned home is vacant but every vacant home is not abandoned,” said Reginald Walton, assistant administrator of abandoned homes for the City of Indianapolis. “A lot of times people get confused when they see that no one has entered and exited from a property.”
To help with such confusion and suggest solutions to the abandoned home problem, the Jewish Community Center hosted a free IndyTalks event Wednesday titled “Our City Under the Radar: Neighborhoods on the Edge.” The event promoted civil discourse on the future of the city.
When dealing with abandoned homes, Walton says the city must first figure out what homes are actually deserted. Vacant homes are still well maintained, current on property taxes and in some cases have for sale or for rent signs in the front yard, he said. They don’t have any high weeds or grass or illegal dumpings or boarded up orders. Abandoned homes are the opposite.
After the initial call is placed to Health and Hospital Corp. which will inspect the property, it takes on average 180 to 200 days for a solution to take place such as demolition. Currently, the city has 2,000 homes it plans to demolish by the end of 2012.
“We put together indicators for what is abandoned,” Walton said. “We looked at board orders, delinquent taxes, undeliverable mail, utility disconnects, high weeds and grass, police runs and demolition orders. We put the data together and run lists of the properties, and it’s easy to see that the property was abandoned.”
Connie Zeigler, chair of the Southeast Neighborhoods Alternatives to Demolitions Task Force served as a panelist at the IndyTalks event. A resident of Fountain Square, Zeigler also lives in a neighborhood with several abandoned homes and started a neighborhood association on her front porch to come up with solutions.
“Abandoned homes can attract human and other mammal types, they’re ugly and they can bring down your property value,” she said. “My main issue is demolition of abandoned homes is only one way to deal with that issue. It’s unfortunate and sad that it’s the only solution our city has come up with.”
Zeigler suggests possible homestead programs where people could purchase abandoned homes cheaply, rehab the home and live in it. Or, grant money for rehabilitation to individuals who are willing to take control of a home to rent or move in.
“I think the city would be better served and I know our neighborhoods would be better served to fill those abandoned homes with homeowners,” she said.
Walton, who attended the IndyTalks event as well, said finding a happy medium for neighbors who want abandoned homes demolished and neighbors who want to rehab homes puts the city in a hard place.
“You have the neighbor who has lived next door to an abandoned property for the last seven years and then there is the neighborhood president who doesn’t want the property torn down because they think it can be saved,” he said.
Additionally, Walton said there are options besides demolition that the city offers. There are tax sales for properties if it has been delinquent for at least a year, the city also receives federal funds from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program and Community Development Block Grant funds that are used to help improve the quality of neighborhoods by repairing and demolishing homes.
“Demolition isn’t the only tool or resource we have, but it is the most used tool right now,” Walton said.
There is also the issue of homeless individuals; some who use abandoned properties for shelter and others who are living in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs.
Michael Hurst, another participant in the IndyTalks event, is the program director for the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention and Prevention. On any given night he says, there are nearly 1,500 homeless individuals in Indianapolis. Most however, are in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs. In the winter there is about 100 to 150 who will seek shelter in abandoned housing.
“You have people who will say we have 12,000 abandoned homes and we have 1,500 people who are homeless, why can’t we just put the homeless in the abandoned homes? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple,” Hurst said. “The issue isn’t the housing, the issue and the expense are the services necessary to stay with individuals once they get into the affordable housing. We have plenty of affordable housing, what we don’t have is the funding for the supportive services that will follow people when they leave shelters and transitional housing programs.”
