Back to Business...
For the past two days (that would be Sunday & Monday for those who are "calendarly-inhibited") had an interesting article about the housing "crisis" here in Fort Wayne, and focused primarily on the city's SOUTH side (my part of da hood). And while I found it pretty much on target with what the reporter (J/G's Dan Stockman) had to say, I couldn't help that I somehow heard it all before.
Then it hit me...I had said most everything that had already been said in that article...and for YEARS.
Damn shame I didn't get into journalism, eh?
Anyway, the first article chronicles a neighborhood around the Drexel-Oxford-Wayne Trace area, stating that one of every six houses were for rent or sale. And according to experts (whoever "they" are) it only take one or two empty houses to bring down the values of a neighborhood up to FIFTEEN PERCENT.
So why has OUR property taxes been going up when we had FOUR out of TEN houses on MY block vacant over the past several years? Makes one wonder, does it not?
Maybe it's the fact that we're white, working,paying taxes already and OWN the house we live in...'ya think?
Maybe the city dollar signs in people like us, and doesn't want to kill the goose laying those golden eggs?
Whatever the case, our neighborhood is not all that unlike the one north of McMillen Park. We have our vacant properties, the unkempt houses with foot-tall weeds that I have to call NCE about monthly (because grass just keeps on growing, even if no one lives there), we have our drug houses, our party houses, and the assorted human vermin that one might expect from a group of people with absolutely no vested interest in their neighborhood.
And of course, along with all these nuances, will follow the subsequent crime that has become the "hallmark" of neighborhoods like these. If it's not scrappers gutting some abandoned house, it's burglaries in the ones still occupied. Or it can be vandalism (thugs marking their turf like dogs pissing on a tree), car thefts, or strong-arm robberies of whoever is foolish enough to brave the streets after dark (and even during broad daylight sometimes).
It's small wonder as to WHY Southtown Mall went to way of the Passenger Pigeon, given circumstances such as these. Same can be said for the BP station at Anthony and Rudisill, or the corner of Warsaw & Suttenfield, or Pettit and Hanna Sts, or the 5800 block of Bunt Drive, or the 7900 block of Serenity Drive. Yes friends, the list never seems to have an end. I would say we have a much more pressing problem in our midst.
it's not so much a housing "glut", but more of a glut of people with no knowledge as to maintaining a viable neighborhood. They have NO concept of community, save for parties thrown on most any day for no reason, save for everyone having another child, or funeral, or sometimes, for no reason at all. They'll come together to act stupid and be loud to all hours, but when it comes to protecting one another's investments...not a soul in sight.
Renters today (in my area at least) have none of the self-respect required to know HOW to take care of something belonging to someone else (the property).
They have no knowledge of ownership, because they either beg, borrow or steal whatever they need to get by. There is NO long-term mindset at work here. it;'s all for the "here and now". Well, neighborhoods tend to last a tad longer than "here and now".
Good or bad, neighborhoods were here before you were born, and will be here long after you've passed on.
Now, the city (as the article alludes to) can tear down houses until those cows come home, and build up the areas anew (with more housing people won't be able to afford), and still be able to affect the positive change they're hoping for. We've given out entitlements to "first time homeowners", breaks for renters, and we can see the result of this folly first-hand.
One thing the city has NOT done is make it worthwhile to REMAIN in neighborhoods that are at their tipping point when it comes to social and structural decline. No one has knocked on my door and even thanked me for doing all that I can to keep my area from getting worse (which it is anyway, simply because there's more of THEM than more of "ME").
The only incentive we have is that the place is basically free & clear, and to take on a mortgage under the current economic situations would not be one of my top ten things to do right now.
The second part of the article talks about razing structures. I've seen people in Philly who had their houses taken from them (by the city) in order to raxe them and make way for the I-95 expansion. Nice historic homes...gone. And the displaced people (many who were at retirement age) were "given" high-rise apartments to compensate. Well, crime moved in, chased the good folks out, and now they have a tenement slum area where once a quaint neighborhood thrived. All the good people are GONE, and the city has another financial black hole to deal with.
Fort Wayne would like to (apparently) follow suit, with tearing down houses for "further development".
I would be the first one to say tear them all down, but I would ONLY say that as a LAST RESORT. Many can be refurbished...and should be. Then, what the city needs to do is get some GOOD people into these houses - none of this lazy-ass, welfare-baby-mama w/ Bebe's kids plus the boyfriend of the month and his friends bullshit!
People have got to be taught HOW to behave when they decide to live among OTHER people who maybe don't like hearing car horns (read ghetto doorbells) at 2AM, or gunshots, or people stopping at the corner to open their car door and take a damn piss before motoring on. They have to learn that what is THEIR business should remain relatively private, and by that I mean I don't want to hear what the hell is going on in YOUR life half a damn block away (it's called keep your f$cking mouth shut once in a while, loud ass).
Is there a housing CRISIS in Fort Wayne? Definitely, but it's born out of the problems relating to the PEOPLE in those houses (or the lack of people that should be in those houses). That is what primarily leads to all the rentals, the vacancies, the board-ups, the crime, and everything else we've come to know and love down on the south side of the city.
Is there a racial factor at work here?
Most assuredly, but trash can come in ANY color. We just happen to have a lot more of one particular hue (which the city likes, becasue they can keep an eye on them all when they're hered into ONE area), that's all, but we also have our share of all the other trash as well.
Like I said here before, I have a great idea that warrants consideration if not implementation, and would be in the city's best interest, "IF" they went ahead to rehab as many of these houses as is possible, get our military service people into them (especially veterans who require housing as our state reps have said time and again), and THEN watch neighborhoods come back to life.
It sure as hell would beat the life support we're operating on now, wouldn't it?