"Restoring Properties, Rebuilding Communities," a new report from the Center for Community Progress, cites a Cleveland-based grassroots program as an example for other cities also struggling with widespread property vacancy.

The report, released at the start of last week's national Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference in Cleveland, outlines the longstanding problem, exacerbated in recent years by foreclosures and the recession: Across the country, from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt, homeowner, rental, commercial and industrial vacancy rates are at their highest levels in decades, and still rising. In some places years of progress is coming undone.

But the report also examines some promising approaches, including Cleveland's "neighborhood stabilization team." Representatives from Neighborhood Progress Inc., Case Western Reserve University and ESOP (Empowering and Strengthening Ohio's People) meet regularly with counterparts from 14 community development corporations to share information and coordinate plans.

Neighborhood Progress brings 20 years of experience in community investment and land reuse. ESOP's foreclosure prevention assistance program has become a national model. Case's Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development maintains the NEO CANDO data base, which stores a wide range of data on neighborhoods throughout Northeast Ohio. Combined they provide an invaluable array of resources for the CDCs on the front lines.

"The effort is a comprehensive approach," the report explains, "aimed at both ends of the stabilization challenge – preventing abandonment … and converting abandoned properties for productive use."

"Many cities now recognize that they will not return to their one-time peak populations, nor to their history as manufacturing centers," the report states. "This admission has fundamentally changed how they think about themselves and their future; it has unleashed … a host of creative initiatives that challenge the traditional ideas of city planning and open the door to a new way of thinking about these cities."

Source: Center for Community Progress   
Writer: Frank W. Lewis