Homeless help rebuild shells of empty homes

Agence France-Presse

With scavenged tools and materials, Christopher Jackson and a small band of fellow tradesmen who also live on the streets of Cleveland are patching up foreclosed houses abandoned by banks and gutted by thieves.

Jackson, 43, was spurred to action when he saw a growing number of families crowd into shelters as the foreclosure crisis swallowed this economically ravaged Midwestern city.

"Something had to give in this town," said Jackson, who has been homeless on and off for more than a decade and volunteers so he has something productive to do with his time.

"We got thousands of homes all over this city just sitting empty. That makes no sense when we got shelters jammed every (expletive) night."

Jackson and his friends have helped scores of families quietly move into the houses, by pulling the plywood off windows, cleaning the yard and gutters, and covering up exposed wiring and other potential hazards.

The families live in constant fear of police and are wary of outsiders.

But a number have managed to squat for long enough to save up money to move into a home with electricity and running water. Others have hauled in generators and gas-powered grills.

If there's a city where the destitute could find refuge in lost homes, this is it.

One in every 13 homes in Cleveland, Ohio is vacant and authorities now deliver eviction notices to up to 300 homes a week -- up from half that number just two years ago. "I know it's bad all over, but it is very clear that Ohio has something uniquely awful going on and this city is right in the middle of it," Peter Bellamy, who manages the county's three-year-old foreclosure prevention program.

"A lot of this is going to be permanent. It's not like California or Arizona, people aren't going to come back."

A stroll through the area known as Slavic Village provides ample evidence of the devastation caused by the foreclosure crisis. Sagging porches, decades-old chipping paint and runaway neglect give way to homes on the brink of collapse. Plywood covers windows and doors and while untended bushes and yards sprout like symptoms of the vacancy disease.

Charred homes are popping up more often as careless squatters start fires to stay warm in the winter or vandals burn houses for kicks. Beat-up cars lingering in driveways fetch more than the withering homes on auction.

The city will have to spend 10 million dollars this year to tear down thousands of houses which have been stripped bare by thieves and are not worth rehabilitating in a city with a rapidly shrinking population.

"I've been in these houses, and there's not a lick of plumbing left in them. They're taking the windows, the siding, the gutters, the wiring, the cabinets, you name it," councilman Michael Polensek told AFP.

"You can't give these houses away now." But while the houses may not be considered habitable by government standards, officials have not yet found a good way to house all the people who have been forced out of them.

The local government estimates that renters represented at least 35 percent of those living in homes foreclosed in recent years. About 10 percent of those end up homeless. And that has put an enormous amount of strain on local shelters.