Derelict buildings frustrate Camden

By JOSEPH GIDJUNIS
Courier-Post Staff
July 15, 2008

City building inspector Jim Rizzo is on the front lines of a fight with no beginning and no end. He makes a 360-degree turn on Morton Street, and views the enemy.

"You have four, five, six, seven, eight vacant houses in a very short distance on this block. It's a sad state of affairs," Rizzo said on his inspection rounds last week. "Residents are frustrated. The city isn't trying hard enough to get the money they should have gotten 10 years ago."

As many as one in five of Camden's housing stock -- that's 6,504 units -- is vacant or abandoned, according to the latest U.S. Census numbers from 2006. Residents feel outnumbered in this war where numbers of vacant, boarded up homes, appear to be climbing as neighborhoods deteriorate.

Camden's makeshift solution is demolition. In past five years, the city of Camden has taken $17 million in state loans and grants, and removed about 850 units, said city Public Works Director Patrick Keating. But once these homes are removed, their empty lots are omnipresent reminders that the city couldn't save them.

Top Camden officials are considering a dramatic policy shift to recover these homes and stabilize them with basic repairs. Camden spends an average of $20,000 on demolishing each house, but redirecting the funds toward saving the home could allow a community development group or nonprofit charity to salvage it and return it to the tax rolls.

"I don't want another demolition in the city unless we can determine it is an absolute emergency," said Camden's Chief Operating Officer and retired Superior Court Judge Theodore Davis. "After that we have to create a program that is going to stabilize and rehabilitate these homes instead of destroying neighborhoods."

In a city known for high crime and poor neighborhoods, vacant houses are the refuge for drug dealers, prostitutes and other criminals, and are a hazard. Often, residents are scared to snitch on the individuals who vandalize them for fear of retribution, said Police Chief Edward Hargis. Mustering landlords to action is also tedious, if not impossible, since 80 percent of the city's rental property owners don't live in Camden, said Code Enforcement Director Iraida Afanador.

For years, the city hasn't collected a physical address for landlords, leaving the city unable to notify long-time landlords about problems or liens on the property. Afanador, who came on earlier this year, has started requiring driver's licenses or other identification with permits so the city can track the owner. Without positive identification, the judicial system has been powerless to take legal action against landlords because it can't try someone it isn't sure it has jurisdiction over, said Camden City Municipal Court Chief Judge Steven P. Burkett.

The one shining light in the city is the multiple community development groups and housing agencies such as the St. Joseph's Carpenter Society, which over time, remodel dilapidated homes and make them livable.

But money is tight on all ends. The city can't take control of property it doesn't have money to fix for liability concerns. Public works has five emergency demolitions it's supposed to conduct immediately, but no funding is available. The police department could use dozens of officers to help patrol quality of life issues, but it doesn't have the staffing. Code enforcement has no dedicated building inspectors to monitor the problem and write citations. Community development groups can only save a few homes each year with their limited funding.

The toothless smile

Tightly packed rowhomes with decades of history stand in solidarity along so many Camden streets. But in recent decades, the vacant, unmaintained homes have started to rot, and given way to empty lots.

Earl and Patricia Boone see the holes on Atlantic Avenue, where they lived for the past four years. Drug dealers walk through the yards and smoke pot in these unmonitored locations. From their upstairs bathroom window, they see the roof in the vacant house next door caving in, and Earl Boone said it's only a matter of time when that neighbor's problem becomes his.

Both said they believe the city can still make a difference, but it would require an attitude shift.

"If people would care about one another," Patricia Boone said.

The Boones attend Rev. David King's Community Baptist Church on Mount Ephraim Avenue. King, a baseball-cap wearing pastor who walks the streets of his neighborhood, said he thinks the city isn't playing fair.

He cited the thousands of dollars of improvements around Cooper University Hospital and downtown Camden, yet piles of garbage sit in drainage ditches lining the curbs of his traffic-heavy thoroughfare. He acknowledges the city is trying to make changes, but Whitman Park isn't on the top of the priority list, he said as he looks across the street of his church at a graffiti-laden building with windows broken out.

"When one window is broken, it invites other things . . . and then when people know nobody is living there, people take it over," said Pilar Hogan Closkey, executive director of Saint Joseph's Carpenter Society.

Stabilizing a property is the best plan because converting a unit allows someone else to have a home, but this, too, isn't a full-proof solution. If there is a gap between the time the house is stabilized and when a housing group can acquire the property, the home is essentially a vacant house, but with nicer amenities. The workflow needs to be steady, or a stabilized home is only a few years from returning to the demolished list.

Unwanted guests

As Rizzo conducts his inspections of vacant units -- a job he may only dedicate a few hours each week to -- he tries encouraging residents to contact the city's code enforcement office and the police.

He knocked on one resident's door on Morton Street, after a report was filed about flooding in the basement. The owner said someone stole the copper piping in the vacant house next to his, and the water flooded his basement, ruining a water heater, a washer and dryer and other valuables.

The fire department had to pump out the water. By law, Rizzo couldn't offer the owner much, other than to put a citation on the door and put it in the system for boarding.

Rizzo is forbidden from entering the abandoned structure, except for an emergency inspection. But Rizzo isn't eager to go into the vacant unit either.

"I wouldn't want to go in there. I don't know who's in there," Rizzo said, adding that he would want a police escort. "The residents are punished by living next to an abandoned house, and we can do nothing about it."

But even boarding up the building is a temporary fix, or not a fix at all.

"We can get public works to board up the house on Monday, and by Wednesday, they've tore them off and they're back inside again," Hargis said.

Afanador said she wants the city to consider cinder-blocking problem properties, similar to what Philadelphia does. Philadelphia uses a combination of cement and mesh wiring at trouble spots, said Gayle Johns, a spokeswoman for the city. It's a method Hargis supports, too, at least on the first floor. The dilemma is cost, but Afanador is optimistic.

"We can't fix what happened in the past. We can only concentrate on the future," she said. "A lot is broke. It's totally overwhelming. But I believe we can do it."

Reach Joseph Gidjunis at (856) 486-2604 or jgidjunis@gannett.com