Date: September 24, 2006
Class Year: 2006
Project Title: A Procedure for Changing the Urban Blight of Abandoned Homes into Needed Housing for Low Income Families or for Assisted Living.
Project Leader Name(s): Terry Winston
Civic Concern Addressed By Project Vision:
Two civic concerns are addressed:
1. Abandoned Homes that cause urban blight. These Abandoned Homes are in such bad shape that no one can live in them and no one does except for the occasional vagrant. These home are found in many neighborhoods throughout Santa Cruz county and surrounding neighbors would like them to be occupied and maintained, but don’t know how this change can occur.
2. Housing needed for Low Income Families and Homes adapted for Assisted Living.
Project Vision: A Procedure with Flow Chart and a Case Study illustrating the process to take an abandoned home that has not been lived in for many years and red tagged numerous times into a home that is either owned by a Low Income Family or an Investor who rents to low income individuals or persons who are disabled and need assistance.
Team Size Anticipated (names of those interested): From one to five or so persons.
Talents, Knowledge, Insights Needed:
• The ability to find out about state, federal, and local government programs that would provide grants, low interest loans, and/or tax credits for low income families, developers, or for assisted living.
• The ability to find out about non-profit organizations who would provide grants, and/or low interest loans for low income families, developers, or for assisted living.
• The ability to research the law to find applicable restrictions and guidelines to urban blight and the condemnation process.
• The ability to interest the necessary government officials in the program.
• The ability to connect to persons in charge of programs who may be interested such as Habitat for Humanity, South County Housing, HUD, COPA, etc.
• The ability to do a title search.
• The ability to get an appraiser (or two) to look at the abandoned property and determine the fair market value.
• The ability to find financing or a non-profit who would purchase the property.
• The ability to make contact with the property owner to make an offer.
• The ability to initiate and complete the condemnation process, if necessary.
• The ability to design the procedure, flowchart, and write the case study.
• The ability to print into a useful notebook.
• Time, patience, persistence, good humor, and optimism.
Resources Needed:
• Internet
• Phone
• Computer
• E-mail
• Printer
Incentives or Benefits of Working on this Project: To develop a blueprint to hand out in neighborhood communities that anyone could use to turn an abandoned home into an occupied home.
Network Needs - Those who will support the accomplishment of the vision outside of the team of participants:
• Community Leaders who have a mandate to find more affordable housing in the community.
• Leaders of nonprofits who have an interest in seeing the development of low income housing and house for those who need assistance.
• People who have access to financing who are interested in providing housing to those in need.
Do List - A short list of anticipated things that will need to be accomplished, understanding that the team will develop the actual action plan:
• Research state, federal, and local government programs that would provide grants, low interest loans, and/or tax credits for low income families, developers, or for assisted living.
• Research non-profit organizations that would provide grants, and/or low interest loans for low income families, developers, or for assisted living.
• Research the law to find applicable restrictions and guidelines to urban blight and the condemnation process.
• Talk to the necessary government officials about the program.
• Talk to persons in charge of programs who may be interested such as Habitat for Humanity, South County Housing, HUD, COPA, etc.
• Find several abandoned homes.
• Do title searches.
• Find an appraiser (or two) to look at the abandoned property and determine the fair market value.
• Find a non-profit that would purchase, or help the individual or family purchase the property.
• Find applicable financing, if necessary.
• Contact the property owner(s) and make an offer.
• Follow the proper steps to get the property condemned, if necessary.
• Write up the procedure, design the flowchart, and write up the case study.
• Print into a useful notebook.
• Make available to the public.
Communication
A Yahoo group has been started for this project to make it easier for your group to communicate with each other online. Yahoo groups is a simple place to send emails to everyone in the group at once, to email files or photos to the project page, to add to the group calendar, to easily view the archive of all messages regarding this topic, and more.
Ready to join this group?
First you need to become a member of the group by going to
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LSCC_UrbanBlight
and clicking on "Join this group!" in the upper right corner. It will ask you to create a Yahoo ID and password. If you use Yahoo already, you can use that ID, otherwise, create a new one.
Yahoo Group information
Group home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LSCC_UrbanBlight
This page contains all of the details about the project and gives you access to all messages, files, photos if you are a member.
Group email address: LSCC_UrbanBlight@yahoogroups.com
This is the email address you send to enable everyone in the group to view your emails.
Once you are a member, you can always edit your account by going to the group home page and click on "Edit Membership" to view your options.
