Whenever the subject of housing comes up, the knee jerk reaction from many people, including most politicians, is to think of public housing. In my experience, fewer people think of actual houses.
As The Birmingham News aptly illustrated last week, the city tears down hundreds of dilapidated and abandoned houses every year. But even at that rate there are thousands more than need to be rehabbed or demolished. Burned out or crumbling shells blight neighborhoods throughout the city, dragging down the property values of adjacent homes and giving shelter to drug dens. Meanwhile, recalcitrant landlords throughout the city buy distressed homes for cheap and lease the properties until they are no longer habitable.
Interestingly enough, the city already has tools to fix some of these problems. Each year Birmingham receives almost $14 million in Community Development Block Grants from the federal government, including more than $2 million in HOME investment partnership funds for building low-to-moderate income housing. This is in addition to law enforcement and community action programs such as Weed & Seed, which despite its name is not about landscaping. Weed & Seed has already been implemented in the Northside Community, where the U.S. Justice Department and Birmingham police work together to reduce violent crimes and increase community involvement in securing the neighborhoods there.
These funds are in addition to the millions the city spends each year on basic infrastructure improvements such as resurfacing roads, repairing sidewalks and maintaining storm sewers. Also, non-profits such as Habitat for Humanity and Alethia House have helped build homes in Birmingham, in recent years, with the assistance of the city.
The trouble is that, as I mentioned in the first post, Birmingham is a city with seemingly insurmountable problems and limited resources to solve them. There are 99 neighborhoods in Birmingham, some better and some worse, and no matter who is the mayor, the city cannot fix all of them at once.
The city must pick targets of opportunity, rebuilding one neighborhood completely with the full measure of its resources and legal authority before moving to the next. The city must repair every broken curb and sidewalk, repave every crumbling street, clear every storm sewer, replace every broken streetlight, cut every overgrown lot, rehabilitate every dilapidated home that is salvageable and rebuild those houses that are not. The police must befriend every law-abiding citizen and bedevil every lawbreaker. This strategy will require virtually every department to play a part, not just Community Development. The police department, board of education, the law department, public works — all must be involved so that the sum of their efforts is greater than the parts.
The trouble with this strategy is that it would take a great deal of political courage. There are 99 neighborhoods in Birmingham, and if you start with one, then the 98 others will be immediately outraged. The mayor must assuage those concerns by promising a continuous process of renewal that is fair and efficacious.
Birmingham politics suffers from a systematic problem: With nine city council districts, few programs will ever see fruition unless they please at least five councilors. As a result, resources for neighborhood development get spread across the city, usually divided by nine. A political junkie friend likens it to shooting a shotgun at a target several blocks away. The mayor must be able to work with the council to meet the greater needs of the city, rather than baiting each councilor with coveted but ineffective district projects.
While it is tempting to select eligible neighborhoods with some kind of lottery, for the plan to work, it must be practical and focused. Criteria for renewal are key. Numerous neighborhoods in Birmingham already have well-crafted neighborhood redevelopment plans. Those neighborhoods would be the first in line. Once the others see that this is a prerequisite for rebuilding, their neighborhood leaders will have a greater political incentive to go through the same planning process. The Department of Planning, Engineering and Permits must be ready to help the lagging neighborhoods draw their own roadmaps to prosperity.
One likely early neighborhood that comes to mind is Fountain Heights. That neighborhood association has spent the last several years working on its revitalization plan. Fountain Heights is neither well-to-do nor entirely helpless. Its citizens and neighborhood leaders are eager to begin improving their community, and the city should help that happen as quickly as possible.
At the end of one term in office, it should be possible to rebuild as many as four or maybe five neighborhoods a year. As the various departments become practiced at the process, the timetable should likewise improve. Twenty years might seem like a long time to rebuild the city, but considering the conditions of some neighborhoods that schedule is generous but doable.
Birmingham is in dire need of conspicuous success stories. As the revitalization process begins, it is crucial that those early neighborhoods succeed, or else the plan falls apart.
What’s more, the city must have a strategy to sustain the rebuilt neighborhoods and to stop the population hemorrhage throughout Birmingham.
In the city, both with commercial and residential properties, there are well known slumlords who act as parasites. They buy a house, lease it until it falls apart, and then use the money to buy another house, when the process repeats itself. The mayor must meet with these individuals, one on one if necessary, and explain to them that the cycle ends now.
One of the most contentious issues before the city since I have covered City Hall has been the so-called Demolition by Neglect ordinance. Already in place, it allows the city to repair deteriorating property before it is beyond fixing, attaching a lien for the costs to the property. After a time, if the debt goes unpaid, the city could seize the property and flip it to a more responsible owner. The mayor has flatly refused to use this law to save Birmingham’s neighborhoods and commercial districts. Instead, he has let it languish in the city’s law depatment, never to be heard of again. The next mayor should not be so timid.
— K. Whitmire
August 27th, 2007 at 10:13 pm
I think everything hinges on schools. People are moving in droves hoping to secure a better education for their children. Improve the schools and some might chose to return. At least, it might slow the exodus.
August 27th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Agreed. But it’s going to take some really radical change. As I’ll get to later, one thing that must be fixed is the rift between City Hall and the Board of Education. Right now, each one blames the other for the system’s failures. Heal that, and we stand a chance.
August 28th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Your article makes very good points.
The neighborhood system in Birmingham is at once a good thing and a hindrance to progress, as it puts yet another level of bureaucracy in an already bloated system.
On the plus side neighborhood associations allow those citizens that choose to participate a forum to organize and make things happen independent of City government. Well… somewhat independently in examples of cleaning up parks and such, assisting needy residents, etc.
Where Birmingham consistently fails in my opinion is enforcement of city codes that are already in place to keep things orderly. There are laws in regards to home/yard upkeep, abandoned property, trash etc. The City does not make a reasonable effort to get out ahead of these issues and make residents comply.
August 29th, 2007 at 9:08 am
I agree with Joe, we need the city to enforce more city codes. I agree we need to pay the police officers more, but also we need the Precinct commanders to have the patrol officers enforce city codes, to my knowledge they are not. I continue to see abandoned cars on streets and officers look at the car and would not put a sticker on it. The suburban departments enforce their codes. In Birmingham, the police officers let guys hang on the corners, 5 to 10 guys, drinking alcohol. The new mayor need to get at the Cheif of police, the precinct commanders, and the beat officers to clean up their beats and that will help our residents and neighborhood.
September 5th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Would the most benefit not come from dropping a large chunk of the money into the areas that area already well on their way to revitalization like 5pts, the loft district, or highlands? Even these areas that are so close to being a great attraction for people to come live or spend money have awful, closed-up, broken-into, and run-down buildings all over the place that attract people that are doing drugs and even pimps and prostitutes that i see getting picked up right outside my window every single night. The city could help by using this money to help businesses by the old buildings, or even have the city buy them from the owners, have them painted and renovated until someone buys them.
As these places, that are already decent attractions to the surbanites, get better and better, and thus attracted more people and businesses and entertainment, it seems like the effect would greatly spill over into the surrounding neighborhoods. Whereas, ignoring the places with the most pull right now, and pulling other neighborhoods up only to par (or even still sub-par) level, wouldn’t really do anything exciting for birmingham.
The people that work downtown and live in hoover arent going to be excited by a new sidewalk in fountain heights. They would, however, be excited by, say, a block near the Alabama theater that had restaurants, places to live, bars, well lit streets, parks, and NO run down empty buildings being used by prostitutes.
I dont mean this to sound like only the “wealthier” parts of birmingham should get all the money, but it seems like these areas would need the least amount of overhead to get over the hump and bring people back to the city, which seems to be the ultimate goal.
September 6th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Sam,
You have great ideas and I do agree with you to some extent. Some of the older neighborhoods have great potential to become great again. Norwood is a great example, with its historic homes and proximity to downtown, the entertainment district, and the Birmingham international Airport. It will take a visionary and progressive mayor to help these neighborhoods ( not Kincade ). Eastlake, Woodlawn, and Roebuck are also areas that have beautiful historic homes. Sam or anyone else that reads this comment drive through Norwood, Eastlake, and Woodlawn and I guarantee you will see the potential. Some of the streets are revitalizing, but the rest of the area needs help. Patrick Cooper wants the city to buy the abandoned houses and buildings and help people move into them. I’m a Cooper supporter because I have talk to him and he has great ideas for the city. I’m not here to tell anyone who to vote for, but go to Patrick’s website and read it yourself, also you can call his campaign headquarters and talk to Patrick about it. Sam you are correct that we should continue to help areas like Glen Iris, 5pts, Highland, Loft district, and downtown because those areas are the areas that’s keeping this city alive. I have to say some of the candidates are content with the way Birmingham is. Three candidates in particular are against growth, revitalization, and they believe we don’t have a crime problem ( Kincade, Valerie Abbott, and Carole Smitherman ), I know because I work for the city of Birmingham.