Broken homes

Providence officials and nonprofits tackle the city's biggest blight -- abandoned housing

by Richard P. Morin

On a gray day in early December, Raymond Neirinckx heads out into the city behind the wheel of his red Chevy Caravan. He and Asata Tigrai, Neirinckx's co-host of this urban tour, say they have a lot of ground to cover. A lot to show.

But on this day, the two housing advocates won't be giving a tour of Providence's much ballyhooed downtown, the location of an urban renaissance. They will show this reporter the other side of the city -- its struggling neighborhoods, where millions of dollars have been spent in the last five years in an attempt to prop up Providence's crumbling housing stock.

Neirinckx crisscrosses through South Providence, Elmwood, the West End, Olneyville, and Mt. Hope, pointing out rehabilitated houses and housing developments constructed by the city and local nonprofit neighborhood housing groups.

The houses and buildings form a jumbled collage that shows no regard for neighborhood cohesion. Three-story tenement houses stand next to single-family homes, which stand next to vacant lots, which abut low-income housing projects, which straddle abandoned factories. The houses' styles and conditions vary from house to house, street to street, and neighborhood to neighborhood. The one constant is the presence of boarded-up abandoned houses, arguably Providence's largest blight.

There are approximately 700 abandoned buildings in Providence, of which about 500 are residential structures. And although Elmwood, the West End, lower South Providence, upper South Providence, Olneyville, Federal Hill, and Smith Hill account for only 34 percent of Providence's total population, they include 76 percent of all vacant and abandoned buildings in the city. (These neighborhoods also have the lowest percentage of owner-occupied houses and the lowest median incomes in Providence.)

Over the last few years more than 400 buildings have come off the abandoned property list, but at the same time 200 others have come on. So while the city has eliminated a number of abandoned houses through demolition or rehabilitation, the overall number has not decreased significantly.

"They're everywhere. They're like a cancer dragging this city down," says Tigrai, at an intersection in Olneyville where several abandoned houses are visible. "Can you imagine what it is like for these people to live among these boarded-up houses?"

Abandoned buildings are more than just an eyesore. They are prime targets for arson, with estimates of 90 percent or more of all abandoned buildings in the city being affected. Fire Department records show that upwards of 30 percent of their responses are to abandoned buildings.

The Providence Police Department also considers the city's abandoned houses to be a haven for drug dealing and prostitution. In Olneyville, community police officers begin their week by going around the neighborhood and reboarding all the abandoned houses that were entered since their last visit. At a recent Olneyville neighborhood meeting, one Providence police officer said that if he had a choice between having more police on the streets or having all abandoned buildings torn down, he would choose the latter.

"In Olneyville we've been dealing with a deteriorating housing stock for 15 years," says Councilwoman Josephine DiRuzzo, who represents Olneyville and heads the City Council's Committee on Urban Redevelopment, Renewal, and Planning. "It is going to take a really big effort on the part of the city to get our neighborhoods on par with the success we have had downtown."

Among the boarded-up buildings pockets of hope do exist, however. Neirinckx and Tigrai of Project Basic, a tenants advocacy group, drive by houses and streets that are well-kept and maintained. They point out once-dilapidated houses that have been renovated by the city or by one of the city's 14 nonprofit housing groups. These homes have lawns, gardens, and some even picket fences. But there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why these well-maintained houses appear among abandoned and dilapidated ones.

"There is no systematic approach to neighborhood renewal in this city," says Tigrai. "The city doesn't have a plan. The nonprofits don't seem to have much of a plan, although it is getting better. And there is no coordination between the city and the nonprofits. So what you get is a renovated house next to an abandoned one. And who is going to want to buy a house when it is standing next to an abandoned one?"

Like Rome, Providence was built on seven hills. And much of its residential structures were built prior to World War II to house workers in Providence's once-bustling textile industry. As such, they were often three-story tenements virtually within feet of one another.

Today, only 21,000 of the city's 65,000 dwelling units are single-family homes. Two- and three-family units account for approximately 45 percent of the city's stock, and more than half of these are not owner-occupied.

Because of age, poor upkeep by absentee landlords and financially strapped homeowners as well as population changes and the boom and bust of Rhode Island's real-estate market in the 1980s, many of the city's houses are now in dire condition. Today, approximately 6000 residential structures in the city (primarily three-family homes) are in below-average condition, with many needing substantial work because of their age.

All in all, the decline of Providence's housing stock can be traced back decades. In Providence, as in many New England cities, banks in the 1950s and 1960s made substantial loans to homeowners. Ten years later, in the 1970s, Providence's population declined significantly as a result of "white flight," leaving the banks with many unpaid loans. Ill-equipped to deal with the houses left to them, the banks slowly but surely wrote off various neighborhoods, and decay and decline quickly began to set in.

In the 1980s, things did begin to look up in Providence. The housing market was booming and many people were buying and selling houses here. But with the frenzy of house-buying came land and real-estate speculators, whose activities helped drive up the value of Providence's housing market.

Not surprisingly, the real-estate boom went bust in the late 1980s, along with the economy and Rhode Island's credit unions. Neighborhoods were ultimately ravaged as many investor-owners abandoned properties whose values had plummeted to far below what they'd paid for them.

Some 10 years later, the legacy of Rhode Island's real-estate boom and bust still haunts Providence. According to nonprofit housing developers here, the cost of repairing or rehabilitating an aging house in Providence is often more than the value of the property itself. Nonprofit and city agencies have tried to fill in the gap between the value of houses and their repair costs by providing low-interest loans or, in some cases, outright grants to homeowners. And in many cases, nonprofit and city housing developers actually rehabilitate houses, absorbing the costs and then selling them at below-market prices to low-income families.

But despite these efforts, it is difficult to attract home buyers to certain neighborhoods in Providence, where they may not see a return on their investment. "There are just too many housing choices in the 1990s," says Clark Shoettle, executive director of the Providence Preservation Society's Revolving Fund. "Who is going to want to buy a falling-down house that will cost them more than its worth to fix up when they can just move to one of the surrounding suburbs?"

And this is precisely what many people have done over the years. According to the most recent estimates, Providence has lost close to 100,000 residents since 1950, which has led to a surplus of housing stock and a further suppression of its value.

The city is also poorer and younger than it used to be. In 1994, 24 percent of Providence's households were below the poverty level. Today, over 55 percent of the city's households are estimated to be at low- or very-low-income levels. "As Providence's population becomes poorer, the harder it is going to be for the city to maintain its housing stock," says John Palmieri, director of the Providence Department of Planning & Development.

For at least the last three decades, Providence has struggled to redevelop its neighborhoods. But it wasn't until 1992 that the city made a concerted effort to stem the tide of its declining housing stock. That year, Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, Jr. convened the Providence Plan, and, with the help and study of two Brown professors, the Providence Plan Housing Corporation (PPHC) was born in 1993.

The PPHC was charged with making an impact on Providence's neighborhoods by helping to increase home ownership in the city, providing funds for the repair and painting of houses, and repairing city sidewalks. The agency was set up as a nonprofit outside of government, with the apparent hope that it would be able to act outside of political influence.

The city borrowed $25 million to fund the PPHC. And under intense political pressure to show immediate improvements to Providence's blighted neighborhoods, the PPHC pumped millions of dollars into the city's housing stock.

Through the PPHC, 434 households received home-purchase assistance; 329 houses received home-repair loans; 148 abandoned properties were purchased; 18 new housing units were constructed; 40 buildings were demolished; 90 houses were sold or leased. The PPHC also managed funds that allowed for 1614 houses in the city to be painted.

Although these numbers sound impressive, when you talk to housing advocates and nonprofit developers, many say the money could have been spent better. "They didn't attack specific areas. It was often scattered so you get no sense of visual improvement," says Tigrai.

The PPHC ultimately came under fire by city officials as well for spending $25 million in less than three years on a variety of housing initiatives that did not produce a revolving stream of income for the PPHC. The spending spree left the PPHC broke, forcing it to cancel programs to repair sidewalks and paint houses.

Finally, in 1995, when then-PPHC director Matthew Powell asked the City Council for additional funds, they balked, leaving Providence's most comprehensive housing program to fall by the wayside.

"The big failure of the Providence Plan was that it did not develop a long-term financial strategy," says Tom Anton, professor of public policy at Brown University and a founder of the Providence Plan. "I suspect they were under considerable pressure to go out and make a difference quickly and visibly, which they did. They just weren't able to sustain it."

Where the PPHC ultimately lost a lot of its money was in the purchase and rehab of abandoned homes that they were unable to later sell. By purchasing and rehabbing homes themselves rather than funneling the money into neighborhood housing groups to do it, the PPHC unwittingly became a competitor of the city's nonprofit housing agencies.

"Where [the Providence Plan] got into trouble . . . is they got into the development game. They bought a lot of property and found it difficult to rehab and sell them. And part of that problem was they had no roots in the neighborhoods they were trying to sell in. It is important to have a community connection to understand the market," says Shoettle.

Although faulted for its lack of communication and coordination with the city's nonprofit housing groups, the PPHC did have at least one major impact -- it "jumpstarted" Providence's housing market, says Robert Ottiano, executive director of the Olneyville Housing Development Corporation.

The PPHC was also successful in helping provide loans to people who wanted to repair their homes. Between 1993 until it ran out of funds and political steam, it assisted more than 300 homeowners in fixing up their homes. On the other hand, Bank It! Fix It!, the bank-run program that replaced the PPHC, has not made loans at nearly the same rate.

At present, the city says it lacks an effective home-repair program. While the Rhode Island Housing & Mortgage Finance Corporation (RIHMFC) runs one similar to the PPHC, RIHMFC critics say that income and other criteria make the program inaccessible. And the record of 39 loans between 1992 and 1995 seem to back up these assertions, according to city housing reports.

"People want to take care of their properties, but they don't have anywhere to turn for help now that the PPHC is gone," says Sharon Conrad Wells, executive director of the West Elmwood Housing Development Corporation (WEHDC).

And it's not just owner-occupants who need help, but landlords and tenants. "A lot of people think landlords have a lot of money, but many of them are just getting by," says Carla Young, executive director of Stop Wasting Abandoned Properties (SWAP). "It seems nobody wants to help the landlords."

What's more, not everyone in Providence wants to be a homeowner, according to nonprofit developers and community activists. "They need to realize that home ownership is an evolution," says Alma Green, executive director of the Women's Development Corporation. "Who says a person who was born and raised in South Providence wants to buy a home there?"

"The huge effort to get immigrants to buy houses is great," Green continued. "But the Latino and Asian populations are too young in this city for them [city officials] to make assumptions about them all buying homes. They are trying to create something that is not terribly real. It is like forced evolution."

Adding to the difficulty is the fact that most of the housing stock in the city is three- and four-family tenements, which aren't necessarily attractive to first-time home buyers.

"They're trying to put families in houses [who] have no experience at being landlords," says Neirinckx, who is also coordinator of the Rhode Island Community Redevelopment Association, which, among other things, works with banks to help them avoid foreclosures. "The margins are so tight for them that if any of their apartments are vacant or someone doesn't come up with the rent, they could lose it."

Indeed, mortgages on three- and four-family homes are at a default rate at least three times higher than single-family house mortgages in Providence, according to RIHMFC statistics.

Since 1992, the city's nonprofit housing groups, also known as Community Development Corporations (CDCs), have developed close to 400 housing units. And in recent years, these numbers have been helped by the arrival of the Local Support Initiatives Corporation (LISC), a national organization that invests in urban communities by channeling private money from corporations and foundations into community-redevelopment groups.

Since its arrival in 1991, the LISC has committed over $10 million to Providence. But, more important, it has helped stabilize the technical abilities of the city's nonprofit housing groups, raising their level of professionalism

"I believe since we've arrived that there has been a steady increase in their ability to work in the neighborhoods," says Barbara Fields, executive director of the Rhode Island chapter of the LISC. "We came in and said, `We believe in you.' And I think they have responded to that."

Rochelle Lee, a program officer with LISC, adds, "I think the jury is still out on the CDCs [in Providence]. The real test will be five years from now and what their properties look like."

The LISC has pushed the nonprofits to concentrate on one street at a time rather than on scattered housing initiatives throughout a neighborhood. And this approach has been embraced by many of the housing groups. "By taking risks and rehabbing whole blocks, we can make a visible impact, and hopefully that impact will spread to the houses surrounding our developments," says SWAP's Young.

But despite their successes, nonprofit housing groups in the city haven't escaped without criticism either. For years, some nonprofits funded annually by the city have not produced any measurable housing output to justify continued funding. Others have failed to produce tangible additions to the housing stock, say city officials.

"For a city this size, it is both a curse and blessing that we have as many CDCs as we do," says Planning & Development's Palmieri. "Historically, some of the CDCs have not operated on a level that we would like to have seen. It is now important that we set up standards that must be met for them to continue to receive funding from the city."

This year, the Providence Community Development Block Grant Program will provide 14 of the city's nonprofit housing groups with $852,000 in financial support. "That doesn't even address the problem, much less solve it," says Ken Shaddegg, executive director of nonprofit neighborhood housing group called the Elmwood Foundation.

Even worse, with the demise of the PPHC, no city department has clear responsibility now for housing planning. Once the responsibility for housing transferred from the Department of Planning & Development to PPHC, the aegis for housing planning was lost. And even when it did head the city's housing initiative, Planning & Development had received a fair amount of criticism for not concentrating its efforts in the city's most problematic areas.

Palmieri says his department has tried its best to concentrate on particular areas, but he laments the political influences exerted on his department by the city's 15 council members. "We do our best responding politically and there have been times when we have been spread too thin," he says. "There are just too many demands. Each [council member] has a specific problem, and they want the bulk of the resources devoted to them. It seems . . . the mayor is the only one with citywide issues at heart."

As an example, the City Council recently voted to approve a $50 million bond to be spent on neighborhood improvements. The money was allocated evenly among the council members' 15 districts, even though some neighborhoods were in more dire need than others.

"That is a good question," says Councilwoman DiRuzzo, when asked why the money was distributed evenly. "God knows, my district could have used all $50 million."

Many housing advocates say the city would go a long way in improving city neighborhoods by strengthening the Department of Code & Inspection and the Providence Housing Court, both of which have been criticized for their inability to deal with absentee landlords who buy houses for cheap, maintain them in poor condition, and then charge the highest rents possible to make the biggest profit margin.

"There are professional slumlords in this city, and the Housing Court is too lenient on them," says Shaddegg. "A landlord who doesn't take care of his property should be fined to death and have the property taken away if they don't do the maintenance. But what happens now is that they are given one extension after another. They know the system."

Irving Brodsky, chief justice of the Housing Court, says he, too, is frustrated with the rate of repeat offenders who come through his court. But he bristles at the notion that his court is too lenient. "The wand of the court just can't be waived and everything is fine," he says. "The court itself is misunderstood. The court is merely the fact-finder and judgment-renderer. The city solicitor is the prosecutor, and Code & Inspection are the investigators. Once a case is brought before us, I assure you they are dealt with."

Overall, things are looking better in Providence these days, Brodsky says. "I can honestly say there is a concerted effort by all departments involved to make this system work. The city would be covered by blight without us. And we don't want that to happen to God's Providence."

Indeed, of the six second-tier New England cities -- Hartford, Bridgeport, New Haven, Worcester, Springfield, and Providence -- Providence is recognized as the one experiencing the most growth and new investment. And with the financial failure of the PPHC, city officials say they are set to launch a new housing initiative that will roll employees of the PPHC into the city's Department of Planning & Development.

"We believe by doing this we will become more efficient," says Palmieri. "We know what the problem is with our housing stock. It's the funding that is going to be the big issue for us. That is why we are going to have to learn how to better leverage our money in the private sectors. The banks are going to have to step up."

Given the City Council's dissatisfaction with the Providence Plan Housing Corporation, the mayor's latest housing initiative probably will meet with strict scrutiny, however. "We are not going to pass another program that is not going to work," says DiRuzzo. "And I don't think the city's Planning Department is ready quite yet to present its case to us. That demonstrates to me that there is a lot of disagreement among a lot of people."

If passed by the City Council, the new plan would allow the city to spend $18.2 million on neighborhood renewal programs. Of that money, $7 million would come from the recent $50 million neighborhood-improvement bond floated by the city.

One mistake that the city will avoid this time around is being both the financier of projects and the developer. "We are going to rely in large part on the nonprofits to do neighborhood developments," says Palmieri. "We will be providing the nonprofits with the strategic and financial resources to do the job in the neighborhoods."

With the development of the new initiative, nonprofit housing developers are more optimistic that this latest effort may result in fruitful cooperation between the city and private agencies.

"We were invited to the announcement of the Providence Plan Housing Corporation," says WEHDC's Wells. "This time we were invited to participate in [the new initiative's] planning. That is a significant step forward for the city."