Riverside buys some of the worst foreclosed homes
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02:09 PM PDT on Thursday, July 2, 2009
Riverside housing officials are on a home-buying spree, picking up vacant and foreclosed houses that appear well beyond the fixer-upper stage.
Their goal is to help turn around declining neighborhoods while boosting home ownership.
Many of the properties appear be the worst of the worst.
"We are focusing on those properties that the private market is not taking care of," city Development Director Deanna Lorson said.
At one house the city owns, on Dewey Street, the dirt crawl space was visible below holes in the bathroom floor and an attached carport was structurally unsound.
Another house, on Arapahoe Street in the Casa Blanca area, had graffiti on every interior wall, dozens of fist-sized holes in the drywall, and melted wall-to-wall carpeting where someone had built a fire in the middle of the living room.
Cleanup crews also have dealt with human waste, drug paraphernalia, even used contraceptives -- all left behind by people who break in to boarded-up homes that have languished for months or years in the foreclosure-glutted housing market.
As of Friday, the city had bought 16 vacant or foreclosed houses, had seven in escrow and had made offers on another 15. All will be restored and sold, at no more than city's cost, to first-time home buyers who agree to live in them, meet income requirements and take a home-ownership class.
The first two houses are expected to go on the market this week.
The house renovation effort relies on a $6.6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, $5 million in city redevelopment funds, and most recently, a $20 million bank line of credit the City Council approved earlier this month.
The city must buy homes in less wealthy areas that meet HUD income and foreclosure-rate standards. HUD also requires that city buy properties at prices below appraised values.
Because of their poor condition, some houses have been acquired for less than $60,000.
In Riverside, about 12 percent of mortgage holders were behind in their payments during the first quarter of the year, according to a staff report, and city officials fear more foreclosures. City staff identified about 400 distressed properties, but about 300 of them did not meet eligibility requirements or were not available.
Potential found
Armed with a bottle of hand sanitizer, city housing coordinator April L. Calhoun walked through abandoned homes looking beyond the squalor to find potential.
Each house provided an opportunity to improve a neighborhood and give a family a first chance at home ownership, she said.
On a recent afternoon, Calhoun pointed to a rundown stucco house near the city airport on Antioch Avenue. An exterior wall had been erected in place of a garage door to create a living space -- an illegal one.
"We'll demo it and turn it back into a garage, because city code requires it," Calhoun said. "This one is going to be a lengthy rehab."
As she walked through a duplex near Patterson Park in the Eastside area, she noticed that someone had tried to paint over a serious mold invasion, a potential health risk that will require exposing and treating studs.
The city might convert the duplex into a single-family house by building a new hallway and converting one of the kitchens into a laundry room, she said.
On the same block, the city is buying a white brick home with a dilapidated, trash-filled swimming pool that will be demolished and filled.
Alvin Hanson, an apartment building maintenance worker who rents a house across the street, said he has seen homeless people go in and out of the brick house and detached garage despite boards on the windows and doors. The neighborhood, he added, has serious problems, such as the aggressive youths who recently harassed at him at the park.
"If that house is an opportunity for a family, that is good thing," he said. "I can't say that two houses will turn around this neighborhood, but a start is a start."
He said he might be interested in buying it and wanted to know whom he could contact at City Hall. Lorson said those interested in the houses can call the city Development Department at 951-826-5649.
Reach David Danelski at 951-368-9471 or ddanelski@PE.com
