TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Rundown, abandoned houses have been a problem for years but the City of Tucson says they’re getting worse. Now the city is working on better ways to get property owners to shape up and clean up.
It’s bad enough to have a neighbor who won’t keep his basic weeds under control. But there are people dealing with houses that are drug havens.—houses, burned down, run down, attracting pests and bad people. Now the City of Tucson is trying to do more to take care of that.
“Willis” asked us not to show her face or use her real name. She’s worried about unneighborly neighbors and a house full of trouble.
“There are squatters who had been occupying it. And they've broken down the front door, they broken down the rear door. And I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but I'm sure they're doing drugs inside that house.”
She’s hopeful the house will be auctioned off soon. Maybe it’ll be cleaned up, or knocked down—just so long as it stops dragging down the neighborhood.
Kali Van Campen says she suspects drug deals were in and around a house in her neighborhood. She says even after a fire, people still hung out there. Then there was another fire that spread from junk in the yard to a tree. From there the fire almost spread to her house.
“Had I not been awake, I would be dead right now. Because my tree overlooks my bedroom. And so what I did was I called the police. They got the firemen here. They were here in three minutes. I mean the police in the fire were so amazing. And then they put the fire out in five minutes.”
Ward 3 Councilmember Kevin Dahl said city staff is looking at how other cities get careless absentee property owners to fix problems faster. Sometimes the leverage is when the city boards up, cleans up the property, then sues the owner to cover the cost.
“We don't go to court very often. Very seldom, we wait, we put the lien on the property and then we wait. The property will be sold eventually and we'll get our money back. But that's leaving money on the table. As far as I'm concerned, we're in a housing crisis. We don't need empty houses in our community. A family could be living in those houses if it was taken care of properly,” said Dahl.
The proposed new system would also decrease the amount of inspections required by the city code enforcement crew.
City staff is turning to Phoenix as an example because, according to Dahl, their process is effective and minimizes costs.
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
