http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Chion/do%20120612%20New%20Haven%20blight.mp3
Urban blight can have an insidious impact on a local community - socially, economically and environmentally. New Haven has just acquired its first vacant property under an anti-blight ordinance.
"It's been a place for people to go and get high, a place for people who don’t have anywhere to live to sleep."
Joanne Kelly is walking back to her home, a few houses away from an abandoned property on Clay Street in the Fair Haven section of New Haven.
Former alderman Joe Rodriguez says city workers came here early this morning to clean the place up.
"...to dump literally two truckloads of trash. This is a school bus stop area. There’s shattered glass and everything.."
Local officials have gathered to announce their first foreclosure action under 2009 anti-blight legislation that was spearheaded by Rodriguez.
"I can’t tell you how often I received phone calls from constituents on this street that would call me to say there’s squatters, there’s loitering, there’s blight, there’s littering"
The ordinance allows the city to fine absentee owners, perform necessary maintenance work, bill the property owner and place a lien on the property. In extreme cases like this one, the city can foreclose to recoup expenses.
Erik Johnson is director of New Haven’s Livable City Initiative.
"It will be offered either for sale, for development either to private entities or local nonprofits for the sake of rehabbing affordable and market re-housing in the city."
What matters the most to neighbor Joanne Kelly is – it might mean a safer place to live.
"Hopefully we can stop the crack use, you know, the hiding out from the police and not be scared to look out your window before you open the door ‘cause you don’t know what's coming. Hopefully."
Six properties have been targeted in the initial action, all longstanding vacant buildings.
