The House Issue

Been having a lot of meetings lately about the vacant and abandoned housing issue.  It could be that it's just me, but it seems as if there is an agenda for the city its task force.  It bothers me that the task force meetings that are "open to the public" aren't advertised and they aren't being completely forthcoming with their data.

I think this is a great opportunity for Transforming Action through Power  to step up and make this an issue.  To that end I have attended a couple meetings of the city and Wendy is helping with that.  We are lacking information regarding the location of the abandoned houses and what the city's ultimate agenda is, but we are moving forward.

To appropriately address this issue we are going to have to build community and neighborhood resources.  Each house or group of houses is specific to the location and there are different needs for each locale.  The only way a response can be formulated is on a case-by-case basis, which is in direct opposition to what Wendy calls the city's data driven model.

Spoke with Ryan Yazel today who told me about the down sides of simply tearing the house down.  The lot across from his house has become a dumping ground for the community.  Because of the location there is little to be done to remedy the situation.  Clearly, response to the abandoned houses needs to be on an individual basis based on neighborhood input.