Declines in funding thwart demolitions

Youngstown 2010 could make housing demolition a higher spending priority.
By ROGER G. SMITH
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Mike Damiano recalls those days in the late 1990s when he could see the theoretical bottom of the city's housing demolition list.
One year, the housing and demolition director had about $1 million to level eyesores cluttering city neighborhoods. About 500 dilapidated houses met the business end of a backhoe.
"We really put a dent into it," he said.
A couple of more years of such spending and Damiano is convinced that residential blight would have become manageable.
The department would have better focused on code enforcement to prevent homes from reaching condemnation. Houses too far gone would have been razed immediately. Few eyesores would stand for long.
Instead, something else happened, which always seems to occur when the city gets close to gaining a handle on demolition, Damiano said.
Funding dropped.
Meanwhile, more of the city's aging housing stock turned from worn to worn out. Houses became demolition-eligible faster than the city could knock them down. The demolition list grew longer.
Then funding dropped some more.
Can't keep up
Today, Damiano estimates there are about 1,000 houses at any one time that are candidates for razing. About half are on the city's demolition list at any one time.
For the 2003-2004 fiscal year that started July 1, however, the demolition office has enough money to level about 75 houses.
Damiano laments lost opportunities.
"We've turned the corner a few times. We'd like to turn the corner and keep going, but we haven't been able to do that," he said. "Once you don't have the money, the neighborhoods just get bad again."
City leaders say the funding trend has been unavoidable. They point to higher employee costs, falling tax revenues and the resulting nagging deficits.
But there is hope that demolition funding will become a higher spending priority one day soon.
Mayor George M. McKelvey agrees that residents view removing blight as a top priority behind police and fire protection.
Contributing to burden
There are two main reasons demolition remains an overbearing challenge, he said. First, the city of 82,000 still has a housing supply built for about 150,000 people from its heyday. Second, there just isn't money to do more demolition, he said.
The city had a deficit of about $12 million when he took office in 1998, he said. After erasing that figure, last year saw a $1.6 million deficit. This year is expected to end with a $1.2 million deficit. About 30 city workers remain laid off.
The city has spent millions of dollars on demolition during his six years, McKelvey said. Nonetheless, the city is unlikely to ever get full control of the problem without a windfall, he said.
"It's like a dog chasing its tail," McKelvey said. "My successor will continue to battle it."
In recent years, demolition has been funded using the city's federal dollars because of a lack of local tax revenue.
Still, funding has fallen the past couple of years.
Relying on federal money
Federal money used to pay for only part of the demolition process, said Jay Williams. He is director of the Community Development Agency, which handles the city's federal money. Today, federal money pays for everything, reducing the amount available to raze houses, he said.
City council members, who dole out the federal money, still are confronted with funding CDA items such as road paving and social services, Williams said.
Visible items such as repaved roads make such spending more politically attractive, he said. Knocking down a few homes doesn't have the impact of a repaved street, he said.
CDA also saw the federal government cut its last budget by $1 million. That makes it harder to spend more money on demolition, he said.
"Demo becomes one of several other items," Williams said. "It just gets caught in that cloud of priorities."
Putting priority on demolition
Williams expects Youngstown 2010 to raise housing demolition as a priority, however. Youngstown 2010 is the process for developing a comprehensive plan for the city's future.
With the help of residents, part of the plan will divide the city into 15 neighborhoods. Each neighborhood will have its own redevelopment plan.
Concentrated demolition likely will be a first step in those redevelopment plans, Williams said.
Eliminating blight will overtake other items as city spending priorities if residents speak with one voice and tell those who dole out the money -- their own council members -- that's what they want first, he said.
Such an effort makes redirecting money toward demolition politically attractive enough to force change, Williams said.
"If people say, 'This is what we desire,' I think council will buy into it," he said.
rgsmith@vindy.com