By SETH SLABAUGH
seths@muncie.gannett.com
MUNCIE — The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program is starting to make an impact on the historic East Central Neighborhood.
“It’s looking better,” said J.C. Amonett, manager of the Main Street Flea Market, 1710 E. Main St.
He points across the street to an empty lot where the city recently tore down a large, abandoned house with HUD funds.
“It gets the drugs and stuff out of here,” Amonett said. “Drugs follow old homes.”
The city last week also demolished another house two doors down from the flea market, and several others have been razed in the vicinity, including an overgrown, raccoon-infested eyesore at 1601 E. Washington St.
The demolished buildings stood at or near one of the neighborhood’s gateways — where Ind. 32 splits into East Main and East Jackson streets near a railroad overpass, the White River and the Cardinal Greenway.
The Community Enhancement Project set the stage for the gateway improvement in 2004 when it landscaped a triangular traffic island where the street splits in two. Formerly covered with weeds, rocks, boulders, asphalt and concrete, the island is now full of turf grass, daylilies and meadow-like ornamental grass.
“They’ve taken a few (houses) down, but quite a few still need to be addressed,” said David Nelson, a cleanup volunteer in the neighborhood. For example, he referred to one house where the roof is caving in.
“It’s just sitting there rotting,” he said. “I saw six raccoons poke their heads through the roof like a Whac-A-Mole Game.”
One abandoned house that was eventually demolished near the gateway was a place “for crackheads to go and party,” said Stephanie Bright, manager of a discount tobacco store at the gateway.
“The crackheads caught it on fire,” she said. “We asked the fire department to let the house burn down but they wouldn’t do it.”
The city is demolishing a record 100-plus unsafe houses this year as a result of funding from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program.
The program was created to stabilize communities that have suffered from property foreclosures and abandonment.
Besides diminishing property values, abandoned properties lower tax revenues, discourage investment, raise fire risk, increase crime, create environmental and public health problems and impose costs on local government to secure and demolish the buildings and provide public safety services.
— This story is part of a weekly series looking at blighted properties around Muncie. To suggest a property for the series, e-mail the address and a brief description to blightwatch@muncie.gannett.com or mail it to The Star Press, Local News Desk, P.0. Box 2408, Muncie, Ind. 47307.