Merrillville eyes funding for blighted-home effort

MERRILLVILLE — The town’s Abandoned House Blight committee determined Thursday that one of its more immediate missions is to identify salvageable houses in the commnunity and find funding sources to pay for repairs if the owners can’t afford to foot the bill.

“If we can renovate homes at a lower cost, we won’t need as many higher-cost tear-downs,” said Merrillville attorney Matt Brandabur, who is working with the committee to reduce the number of vacant, abandoned and blighted homes in town.

He said any house with significant code violations, such as a leaking roof or chimney in disrepair, can be added to the list, even if the house is still occupied.

The town would also list abandoned and vacant houses and those deemed unsalvageable.

“The most important things to do with the list is to determine why the house isn’t selling. Is it not attractive? If we ID the problem, we can rectify it,” Brandabur said.

Churches and community or- ganizations, such as Christmas in April, make some needed repairs free of charge to the needy.

Brandabur referred to several Indiana cities that he learned are successfully tackling their abandoned home problem while attending a recent conference on this issue sponsored by Indiana Association of Cities and Towns.

He said Kokomo increased its code enforcement by 110 percent and officials there work with property owners on finding funding to fix their problem, such as with U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development money.

Brandabur said with the increase in code enforcement, money generated from fines assessed for various violations can help pay to rehabilitate unkempt properties, or demolish unsalvageable ones.

“We need to identify the properties, see why they’re that way and target the problem,” Brandabur said.

“With a broken window, boarding it up is not an acceptable solution,” he said.

Councilman Richard Hardaway, D-2nd, who chairs the abandoned house committee, said the ideal situation would be to catch the houses that have been foreclosed within the last six months to one year and are still in good condition and being maintained.

Hardaway said the town needs to be broken down into four quadrants, with the committee starting within one of the quadrants.

He said the town could give these owners so many days to come up with a plan to make any needed repairs and maintain them or the town will come up with a plan for them.

“The key is having a lending situation willing to work with us and Matt (Brandabur) to guide us,” Hardaway said.

Brandabur said some insurance companies have a program in which, for a $100 registration fee, towns can be paid for any cleanup costs to an abandoned or burned property under a homeowner’s insurance policy.

“When an insurance company gets ready to pay a claim, they’ll hold so much for cleanup purposes,” he said.

Brandabur said this would rectify the problem of homeowners taking the insurance money and abandoning a property.