Editorial: Use blighted properties to fight housing problems

Tribune-Review | Monday, December 26, 2022 6:01 a.m.

Shane Dunlap | Tribune-Review

Tia Bentley reacts with amazement upon seeing her new bedroom for the first time during at Habitat for Humanity key ceremony for the newly remodeled home on Dec. 20 in Jeannette.

There is seldom just one way to solve a problem.

Instead, there can be a menu of options that can take you down different paths. The question is priorities. Do you want your task done quickly, cheaply, efficiently? Do you want it done green, or is supporting local business important?

That means that sometimes the solution you pick might be able to kill two birds with one carefully chosen stone.

Housing and blight could be those birds.

Pennsylvania is rife with communities dealing with blight. Population centers shift. Industries rise and fall, and new ones take their place.

That leaves downtowns with grand old storefronts that have seen their last shoppers. There are factories where nothing is produced anymore. There are homes that once saw growing families but now stand empty and abandoned, pulling down the property values around them.

At the same time, the state is dealing with housing issues. There is homelessness. There are rising rent prices. Westmoreland County had housing money from the pandemic that went unused because of people who fell between the cracks of what qualified for help and what didn’t.

Addressing blight could help fill in the gaps and open literal doors when it comes to housing issues.

In Jeannette, the Central Westmoreland Habitat for Humanity just turned over the keys to a home that took 80 volunteers and 400 man hours over nine months to bring back from blight.

It isn’t just an issue of the dignity of respectable, appropriate, safe housing for a family. It isn’t just about elevating the neighborhood and improving the community.

It’s also about being a sound economic move for every taxpayer.

When a property is rescued from blight, it stops being a drag on the overall budget — a place that is likely not seeing taxes paid. In fact, many homes wind up in the possession of a municipality when they are taken for unpaid taxes or other liens amid disputed ownership.

But when Tia Bentley took those keys to her new home — a house she physically worked to bring back from the blighted brink — she put it back into a place where it will generate tax income for the community.

Blight can be battled back by looking at it not just as a problem but as the solution to another problem.