“We are thankful to have the grant money because of the savings to the township and the

“We are thankful to have the grant money because of the savings to the township and the taxpayers, and that is one of the biggest reasons that we are trying to [demolish] as many as we can. We want to clean the township up, and we want to have a community that people are happy to call home.”

Jim Davis, Austintown Township trustee. A state attorney general’s grant program enabled the township to use $89,828 in both matched and unmatched funds to knock down uninhabitable, vacant homes without having to find additional funding in the budget.

“If you can improve this area, you improve downtown, the Historic Perkins Neighborhood, the high school, so it’s strategic.”

Dennis Blank, a volunteer with the nonprofit gregg’s gardens in Warren. He says the fields of ryegrass that occupy 20 vacant lots along Atlantic Street Northeast north of downtown look better than the weeds that would have grown there on their own and required weekly lawn mowing.