Ohio Town Demolishes Abandonded Homes, Streets To Rebuild "Green Spaces"

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - In the midst of the nation's subprime mortgage crisis as more houses become vacant after foreclosure, communities could follow the lead of officials in Ohio who have developed a new plan to deal with the empty homes. In Youngstown, city officials have seen their population shrink by half over the past 50 years and are now tearing down empty houses and streets to reclaim the land.

That could be the answer to neighborhood blight being experienced in places such as Medford, Oregon in Jackson County where 750 homes were foreclosed on last year alone. More than 1,000 houses have been torn down in Youngstown so far and entire blocks turned back into green spaces, according to CNN Money reports.

One of the most recent homes to be foreclosed on was valued at $453,000. When the homeowners were foreclosed on they left behind a house full of possessions including a piano and a yard strewn with toys, garbage bags and beer bottles, the AP reports.

Often vacant properties become havens for overgrown lawns that attract rats and snakes, which then invade nearby occupied homes causing problems for homeowners still living in their houses, the WV Register-Herald reports.

However, most cities have codes governing the condition of the exterior of properties and the lawn. That means when a bank owns a foreclosed property it must keep the lawn maintained or face fines for code violations. But that also means that sometimes banks board up properties to protect them from vandals or vagrants, creating an eyesore in a neighborhood.

The problems of abandoned houses will likely grow worse as the nation's subprime mortgage crisis deepens.

For example,default notices in Medford have gone from three or four a week to 30 to 40 now, the AP reports.

Medford has an estimated population of about 70,000 while Youngstown's population is about 80,000, according to the U.S. Census.