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North Siders to city: Raze ex-mortuary
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TAKE IT DOWN: ACTION, a faith-based, grass-roots community organization, wants Youngstown to demolish the long-vacant Linton Funeral Home on the North Side. Among those calling for the building to come down are, from left, Byron Armour, a North Side resident; Rose Carter, an ACTION organizer, and Pastor Joseph Rudjak of Sts. Peter and Paul Church.
Pastor Joseph Rudjak says the building poses a danger to the community.
YOUNGSTOWN — It’s been 35 years since the Linton Funeral Home closed its business on Arlington Street.
Since then, the 5,200-square-foot building on the North Side has fallen on hard times.
The 94-year-old building is in bad structural shape — the overhang above the front porch is caved in, for example — and neighbors say it’s become a haven for illegal activities.
And it needs to be demolished now, neighbors say.
“It’s in a state of disrepair, it’s dangerous, and it’s an eyesore,” said Byron Armour, an associate church pastor and North Side resident who wants the former funeral home building to come down. “It’s falling apart. I’m concerned about kids playing there, particularly because it’s a ripe location for drugs and prostitution.”
The Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing Our Neighborhood, or ACTION, is having a community meeting at 3:30 p.m. Thursday at Sts. Peter & Paul Church, 421 Covington St., which is close to the funeral-home property.
ACTION members including Armour and Pastor Joseph Rudjak of Sts. Peter & Paul are urging city officials to tear down the former Linton building.
ACTION is a faith-based, grass-roots community organization that focuses on social justice issues.
“We want it to come down,” Rudjak said of the Linton building. “We’re concerned about the safety of people in the neighborhood, particularly the children. It’s been dangerous for a long time, and the deterioration and level of problems there are increasing.”
Youngstown Mayor Jay Williams recently met with ACTION officials, and the financially struggling city will get a cost estimate on the demolition of the building.
“We certainly support [ACTION’s] efforts,” he said. “There are a number of active churches and parishioners there, and we’re concerned about” the building. “It’s a matter of costs. It will be primarily driven by the cost” of demolition.
If asbestos or other harmful materials aren’t found in the building, the city can demolish it, Williams said. The removal of asbestos and other harmful materials makes the cost of demolishing buildings cost-prohibitive, he said.
“No matter the cost, we should bring it down,” Rudjak said.
The city typically contacts the owner of a building that is to be demolished or in dangerous condition to pay the improvement costs, Williams said. But the inability to find the owner or get the owner to pay doesn’t stop demolitions in the city, the mayor said.
Getting the Linton property owner to pay could be a challenge.
The property is owned by Jehojena Inc., based in Belize City, Belize, a Central American country.
Jehojena bought the property for $3,000 on June 9, 2008, from Schouten Manita of Slyvan Lake, Alberta, Canada. Schouten Manita bought the property for $3,000 on Sept. 24, 2007, from AVR Holdings Inc., an Elmhurt, Ill., company. AVR purchased it for $59,381 on June 22, 2007, from American Tax Funding, which foreclosed on the property through a tax lien.
ACTION plans to target other abandoned buildings it considers dangerous for demolition, calling the effort “Operation Holy Ground.”
“We call it the Holy Ground initiative because it’s blasphemy for six churches to be in the neighborhood and this building with gang activity and — I hate to talk about it as a pastor — prostitution,” Rudjak said specifically about the Linton property. “We feel we should speak up.”
skolnick@vindy.com