 Members
of Organization for a New Eastside's S.A.N.E. Action Project (Stop
Abandoned Neighborhoods with Education) packed a bus in late winter
with members of the Indianapolis Mortgage Fraud Task Force, Indianapolis
city officials, representatives of the Department of Housing and
Urban Development, Golden Feather and local reporters.
The bus tour took the officials across Indianapolis’s eastside,
an area overrun with abandoned buildings.
“We wanted to show these people what it’s like, and
what we have to live with on a daily basis because of bad loans
and the abandoned buildings as a result of those loans,” said
ONE leader Carol Hammack.
The first stop on the tour was one of seven homes a slum landlord
was able to purchase through the help of unregulated sub prime lending.
An abandoned building before the sale, this home had been cited
72 times for housing code violations during the four year life of
the loan for such obvious flaws as crumbling foundation, poor roof,
missing windows and siding.
Now in foreclosure, a well-known real estate company was handling
the resale efforts. Rather than post a sign in the front yard, this
house was so embarrassing that tour bus attendees were barely able
to read the For Sale sign taped to the front door on faded plain
white paper.
Upon showing the dilapidated building, ONE leader Kay Grimm said,
“This is what we’re talking about. The City of Indianapolis
has failed to install a property maintenance system before, during
and after foreclosure. Nothing has worked to get this house in shape.”
The tour wound through ONE. turf where abandonment ranged from a
few houses on a block to 50 percent or more on other blocks.
“I have driven by this house for years,” said moderator
Kim Washington. “The grass has never been mowed, the windows
have never been boarded, it’s always a mess.”
ONE leader, Charlie Convover pointed out the number of houses on
his block where dead bodies have been found.
“People move in, find out somebody’s been killed in
the house and move right back out,” Conover said. “We
can’t even get somebody to rent one of these houses let alone
buy one.”
For the past year, ONE has met with the Indianapolis Board of Health
and the police department about the dangers abandoned buildings
pose to neighborhood safety. It has been working to get a meeting
with the Department of Metropolitan Development who is in charge
of block grant money that can be reallocated to maintain and clean
up abandoned buildings in ONE's neighborhood.
After viewing the progress ONE has had in reclaiming the neighborhood
and fighting predatory lending, a bank representative departed the
bus saying, “Thank you, thank you, I grew up in this neighborhood
and this took me back, way back. We must work together to get this
fixed.”
Another official reported to ONE leaders, “I worked here in
the 70’s and had no idea the neighborhood had declined to
the state it’s in today. It’s deplorable. Taking us
through the streets showed me that this neighborhood has gone to
hell in the last thirty years. You guys (ONE) are to be commended
for your work.”
A city official who had been the target of ONE actions agreed to
“get more money into this area.”
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