Image licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy of flickr user themadcanudist.
Boarded-up houses, empty apartment buildings, and rising homelessness mark an unmatched housing crisis for the country.
This week, Maggie Lange examines what three Providence-based artists and designers have decided to do about it, to raise awareness and create a stronger city community.
The BRU Brief airs weekly on 95.5 FM, recapping the week’s top local, national, and international stories, and taking a closer look at the issues of the day in Southern New England. Tune in on Monday nights at 11:00, or stream live at news.wbru.com.
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PICTURES AND STORIES DOCUMENT PROVIDENCE’S HOUSING CRISIS
Maggie Lange
The Forgotten Providence website has dedicated itself to documenting abandoned and vacant housing in Providence.
The site is part catalogue, part photographic exploration, part factual resource about Providence housing.
“We tried not to take an artistic standpoint on this, you see a lot of glamorization of decay out there, we decided it’s not going to be an aesthetic thing. We see it as a community driven tool that gives anyone that has a camera the opportunity to upload a photograph.”
That was Myles Dumas, one of the three co-creators of the site.
Together with Josh Oakhurst and Sam Holland, these three Providence artists and designers have created a unique account of the housing crisis for Providence
Often these houses are emblazoned with graffiti, while houses like 69 Althea St. show extensive fire damage.
Others have messages about missing copper pipes, and some like 102 Ring St. play host a bonfire-worthy pile of furniture debris.
12 Bernon St. has become the site of a whimsical art project.
“A lot of comments from people in the neighborhood, who have seen houses come up and people providing back stories talking about, you know, my father used to live there twenty years ago, it’s such a shame what happened to it, people giving up data, if they’ve seen kids break in.”
People post on the site what they know about the properties – which banks are foreclosing, if they have witnessed any break-ins.
It’s a community driven research project.
The site also features postings from people who have been displaced from these houses, and from people whose ancestors used to live there.
J Hogue from Art in Ruins says this calls to mind the latent neighborhood spirit of Providence.
“It’s a pretty specific New England attitude, New Englanders don’t want to see things change too often or too quickly – part of it is long standing family traditions.”
Despite people coming together, there is still the risk of apathy.
“They’re able to see these things as sign of the time that no one cares about their neighborhoods or cares about these houses or the families that have been displaced by all of this, but there are stories like this in every city, everyone is grappling with these housing issues. If they are truly concerned they should try and do something about it.”
The number of abandoned buildings is increasing, paired paradoxically with a rise in the number of homeless.
As more and more people are losing their homes, and no one can buy – people become homeless and homes become owner-less.
Entire apartment buildings remain empty downtown, while the streets become populated with people who have nowhere to live.
Mayor Cicilline estimates 750 houses are vacant and boarded in Providence, but the number stretches to about 1,200 according to other studies.
That’s about 4% of the city’s residential housing stock, according to Forgotten Providence.
“It’s unfortunate because it doesn’t take more than a couple foreclosed and abandoned houses on a block to start a steady decline.”
The houses abound in neighborhoods all over – from South Providence, to Silverlake, Olneyville, and Elmwood.
Most of these areas are connected to higher levels of poverty and lower household income.
Forgotten Providence seeks to document the breadth of this problem.
But awareness has been raised – now what?
The Federal government is using the US Department of Housing Urban Development – HUD to bring Neighborhood Stabilization Grants.
These grants have purchased some homes in Providence and offered loans for reconstruction.
Rhode Island is set to receive 19.6 million dollars for down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers.
However, oftentimes this money is caught up in bureaucratic knots, says Clark Shoettle, director of the Providence Revolving Fund, an organization dedicated to preserving Providence’s architectural heritage.
“It’s frustrating because there is no easy solution and the federal government’s solutions with neighborhood federal stimulus funds is relatively cumbersome to deal with. All of that money is moving very slowly and everyone is finding it difficult to use based on the guidelines that HUD and congress placed on that money.”
The State of Rhode Island Housing Resources Commission, the City of Providence Department of Planning and Development, and local community groups like Stop Wasting Abandoned Property will also providence loans.
To discourage abandoned buildings, Providence Mayor David Cicilline passed legislation for a yearly tax on vacant properties.
However, a remedy is not clearly in the works.
Even with rehabilitation loans and down-payment help, the procurement and reconstruction of Providence houses is remarkably difficult.
The price of repairs, city fines, fire codes, housing regulations add up quickly, so these houses sit – susceptible to the elements and squatters.
“It’s a problem and it’s deteriorating our neighborhoods. Another issues that’s compounding all of these issues are the changes in the fire code, and how difficult it is to renovate a three or four family house today. Those changes are way beyond what makes sense for a triple-decker in Smith Hill.”
With so many toxic mortgages, coming quickly after the housing bubble, the paper work is more than shoddy.
“There are probably 45 different banks and mortgage companies that have mortgages, so there isn’t one person or one bank to go to to figure out how to get a hold of a property.”
That’s what makes an information-aggregate website like Forgotten Providence so crucial.
“If you show it all then you know what the gamut it. If you don’t know what’s broken, you don’t know how to fix it.”
These boarded houses remind the website’s visitors of Providence’s specific housing history as well as the future of the housing crisis in America.
And while the situation might seem discouraging – the website has amassed over 250 properties and shows no sign of letting up – Forgotten Providence is ultimately about finding a solution.
“There are lot of houses with some great potential so if incentives could be made good enough, somebody who wanted to get hands dirty and could pick up one of these houses at a reasonable price given the amount of money you would have to put into it, then some of these houses can be saved.”
So if you’re willing to get your hands dirty, head to Forgotten Providence.com.
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