The foreclosure crisis hit many cities like Cleveland hard, leaving thousands of vacant and blighted properties in its wake. According to a CNN Money article, developers have attempted to rebuild some of the homes, but renovation costs often exceed resale values and they can lose money.
So Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County shifted gears last summer and started tearing down abandoned buildings. In their place, the county has created green spaces, turning some empty lots into greenhouses and food production facilities. There’s even a vineyard.
The county used about $10 million of Ohio's Hardest Hit Fund to demolish 1,000 properties under the state’s Neighborhood Initiative Program. The U.S. Treasury Department established the fund in 2010 to help the 18 hardest hit states and Washington D.C. develop local programs to assist struggling homeowners.
Ohio’s Neighborhood Initiative Program website describes demolition as “a critical component of strategies to stabilize home values,” explaining that “foreclosures result in distressed sales that further depress property values…too often resulting in Vacant and Blighted homes.” The initiative has been so effective in Cleveland that in October, Cuyahoga’s county issued a $50 million bond to demolish 5,000 additional properties. And, according to the article, other states like Michigan and Indiana are following suit.
