InCity Letter
The 10 worst housing properties in Worcester as of November 22, 2006 are all in District 4. The District that is represented by Councilor Barbara Haller who spends hours giving lip service to closing the PIP shelter but never offering solutions for improving or moving it. She is always shaming and blaming social service agency properties and the people living in their houses for causing problems rather than giving them credit for the positive impact they more often than not have on neighborhoods. She is constantly singing the praises of the Main South CDC as the role model when in reality their next 24 units of housing only represents about $120,000 in new tax revenue. My question is what is the cost to develop and build those 24 units? Thank goodness at last the Main South CDC gets it and is building some environmental friendly housing in District 4.
How much of our tax revenue is spent on the cost of the city services needed to address the issues of the 10 worst properties in District 4? Not to mention the human cost felt by the tenants, who are forced to live in these often dangerous, unsanitary, rodent infested, trash ridden, and unsafe properties. Forced to live there due to a lack of affordable well-maintained rental properties and afraid to report the conditions in fear of retribution from their landlord. Plus think of the negative impact those landlords and their unkempt properties have on the neighbors and the neighborhood overall.
I suggest that Councilor Haller might better use her time not just editorializing about these properties, but rather to step up to the plate and help the Health and Codes Department to more aggressively target absentee landlords. Support the neighbors and the tenants living with these conditions by working with them and helping them to know what they can do as tenants and neighbors to put pressure on absentee landlords. And then at budget time support the Code Department and its inspectors by demanding more money in the budget to hire more staff.
This issue of absentee landlords and blighted dangerous properties in District 4 has to be targeted because it is a major a public safety issue in the District. Plus, it is only right that people living in District 4 have affordable and safe rental properties to live in, especially when the rents they pay are so outrageously high.
Those of us living in District 4 need leadership that will no longer allow these properties to languish. We need a change in direction and focus in District 4 that fosters proactive education for all landlords and tenants and enables the codes division to concentrate on fixing the worst of the worst properties. If a raise for Councilor Haller were dependent on her performance for holding the absentee landlords of the 10 worst properties accountable in District 4 she would not get one.
Submitted by Lynne Simonds
December 18, 2006Lynne Simonds for District Four
1 Comments:
Ms Simonds:
If you are really concerned about the lack affordable housing in Main South, I think you should look into the operations of Main South CDC. An friend of mine bought a 1/2 of duplex on Beacon St. and he only owns the house and not the land that it sits on. He has to lease the land. The price he paid for this 1/2 duplex house is way too high when you consider that it does not include the land. I can buy a 1/2 duplex in this area for 180,000 and it does include the land. What incentive does my friend have to keep up the property when local real estate agents have told him he will never be able to resell the house only ( no land) for anything close to what he paid for it? This is a ripoff especially when you consider how prices have risen since his purchase. If you think that Main South CDC produces affordable housing, then I Have some sorry news for you. Ask Mr Teasdale if he would ever buy so called real estate such as this. Ask a dozen real estate agents what one of these places will fetch. It isnt even real estate if one doesnt own the land. It's identical to a trailer park, but even worse because the "tenant" cannot even remove his structure as a mobile home owner could in a trailer park. Wait till a few of these places go into foreclosure and you'll see what they fetch. Whats Main South CDC's next venture, a community garden that is long term leased/rented to share croppers?
I anxiously await your response and also Mr. Teasdales, too. Surely he reads this blog. Thank you.
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