In May, citing concerns about possible mismanagement of the program by the city's Redevelopment Authority, Mayor Nutter halted NTI. He ordered an audit and directed a top aide, Terry Gillen, to sort out the agency's problems.
Nutter also has ordered a top-to-bottom review of the city's Department of Licenses & Inspections, which is responsible for inspecting properties. These steps were needed, but they take time.
The urgency of implementing a new, coordinated attack against blight can't be overstated. City officials now estimate there are between 20,000 and 25,000 vacant houses in the city again.
In other words, after having borrowed and spent hundreds of millions of dollars to fix the problem, the city has barely made a dent in its overall stock of dilapidated properties. That shows NTI wasn't very effective, and it also shows the relentless nature of the problem. The city must devote more resources, and smarter strategies, to stay ahead of blight.
Any residents who live near a vacant house know it's not just an eyesore. Vacant properties are unsafe, attract crime and reduce property values.
On July 28, fire in a vacant house in the city's Tioga section spread to three other homes, leaving 12 people homeless. City fire officials blamed the blaze on drug activity in the vacant house. Neighbors said they had complained to police and to L&I for years about squatters living at the property.
Since May 2007, 14 calls were made to police about the house in Tioga. L&I inspected the property in 2006, but the city's response ultimately wasn't enough to prevent other families from losing their homes.
Of course, police departments are not the solution to blight. That's why it was a good idea for Nutter to propose a 311 call system for residents to make and track complaints. That should spur the notoriously labyrinthine L&I to more effective action.
The search for a solution is even more critical in light of the foreclosure crisis that has hit Philadelphia and other cities so hard this year. With more homes vacant, there's an expanding risk to all neighborhoods. It's imperative that Nutter and City Council intensify their efforts to stay on top of this growing blight.
