DsNews wrote about the solutions that are being proposed to fix the issue of vacant homes across America. In a recent blog post, I wrote about the 6 million unoccupied homes in the U.S. Of the 6 million units, 1.5 million of them are single family homes or condos. Communities and neighborhoods are impacted by the deteriorating properties and decreases the quality of life for residents nearby. The highest amount of zombie properties are in New York, Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and New Jersey. According to DsNews, Katherine Garvey stated, “Despite vacancy often being thought of as an urban area problem, rural areas face hyper vacancy as well”. The vacancy problem is not only occurring in cities, but in rural areas as well.
WHAT ARE THE POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS?
There are a proposing notable solutions to help decrease the amount of unoccupied homes. The first solution is adding roughly 6 thousand units of affordable housing in Atlanta, Georgia. Another plan is to demolish 9,000 abandoned homes over the next five years. Detroit is still recovering from the 2008 crash and the city is in desperate need of affordable homes. Akilah Watkins-Butler, CEO of the Center for Community Progress on Marketplace stated, “Some communities aren’t going to be where they were 50, 60, 70, 80 years ago — that’s just the reality — but we can still make those places great places to live.” Hopefully these solutions succeed and provide a model for other cities facing vacancy problems.
To read the full DsNews report and learn more click here.
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