New idea arrives on blight removal
By Jim Gaines, The Macon Telegraph | |
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services |
Early this year,
The group discussed "some kind of recycling," for which labor would be the only real cost, he said. Riley suggested tearing down houses, to allow reuse of the material. Through an online search, he found that idea had already taken hold in other places.
But the churches needed a partner that could legally employ their homeless clients, and provide insurance, said Riley, who is a
"They said 'great,' " Riley said.
Now
The average cost for the government to tear down an abandoned house is between
Riley said the Rev.
Reichert, using numbers provided by Jackson, said there are about 4,000 abandoned structures in
Mayor
"What you've got in
If Habitat now starts tearing down houses in addition to building new ones, the government can put more of its own effort into other areas of revitalization, he said.
The churches were looking at ways to help the homeless beyond immediate physical needs, helping them to become more self-sufficient, said
Habitat branches in other cities are doing similar things, he said.
The
A team of four people, including a supervisor, probably will work on the house, Tessendorf said. They're aiming to get a house down to its foundation in three weeks; after that a contractor would take up the concrete footing, and the vacant lot would be seeded with grass, he said.
Even if the program grows and succeeds, it's not a "silver bullet" for blight but can be one more tool in dealing with the problem, Tessendorf said.
The training and experience could help the workers get construction jobs, Tessendorf said.
People in Centenary's transitional housing will be the first offered training in house demolition, Riley said. He's not sure how many houses they might eventually do at once. The first house project will test how long each job will take.
"With the number of houses that the city has that need to be torn down, there's no reason why there couldn't be a good number of crews on any given day working," Riley said.
It may take longer to tear down a house by hand than to knock it down with heavy equipment, but the result will be better, he said.
There is less material that would go to the city landfill, instead becoming available for other people's projects at the
"There's so many good things that can come out of it," Riley said.
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