3 Hudson Valley Cities Clearing Out Zombie Homes With State Grant

HUDSON VALLEY, NY — Mount Vernon, Newburgh and White Plains are among 10 cities in New York state getting new grants to help them clear out zombie properties. This second round of funding was announced Friday, with the money coming out of a $5 billion fund the state Attorney General has built up through settlements with large financial institutions that broke laws.

The second phase of the Cities for Responsible Investment and Strategic Enforcement grant awards completes a more than $11 million investment over two years for neighborhood revitalization in cities and towns across New York. Launched in April 2017, Cities RISE helps families and communities continue to rebuild from the housing crisis.

Phase One granted cities and towns a two-year subscription to a data platform designed to integrate and analyze data to strategically address blighted, vacant, or poorly maintained problem properties. Today’s new round of awards will provide municipalities with new resources and training to leverage their data into improved code enforcement practices and policy changes, and an opportunity to apply for innovation grants of up to $1 million to implement these strategies.

Mount Vernon will use this grant to tackle zombie properties and other issues of safety and code compliance in city buildings through its Quality of Life Task Force, and city officials plan to apply for innovation grants.

"It's vital that we receive these funds," said Mayor Richard Thomas at a press conference Friday. "We want a safer Mount Vernon and we want a safer situation for our emergency services."

Standing in front of a zombie property, city officials extolled the data platform that helped them look up the owner on the spot — and hold banks accountable. Deutsche Bank owns the property - they looked it up for reporters on the spot through the data platform.

"Just look at this," said Building Commissioner Daniel Jones, waving at the boarded up house and its sagging retaining wall. "It's real. It's not safe."

In addition to the three cities in the Hudson Valley, Phase Two awardees include the cities of Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Elmira, Niagara Falls, Rochester, and Syracuse.

“The Cities RISE program is helping communities address and transform the vacant, blighted properties that became all too prevalent following the housing crisis,” said Attorney General Barbara Underwood in the announcement. “As a result of the funding secured by my office's settlements with the big banks, we’ve been able to invest in cities and towns across New York – and provide tools to rebuild and revitalize our neighborhoods.”

The awardees will receive technical support from Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and Tolemi – a social enterprise that created the BuildingBlocks platform used by all Cities RISE participants. Harvard and Tolemi will work together to provide municipalities with advice and training on how to leverage their data and evidence into operations and policy changes. City leaders, including mayors and supervisors, will participate in Harvard’s Executive Education Program in the summer of 2019 to discuss key problems in their municipalities, learn from each other’s plans to confront these challenges, and work towards developing new strategies and practices based on their own data-driven knowledge and community engagement process.

Participating municipalities will also work closely with the Hester Street Collaborative, an urban planning, design, and development nonprofit. Hester Street will advise and provide training to each municipality in developing a feasible and effective community engagement process, including convening an advisory board of local stakeholders and hosting large-scale public meetings. The engagement process will allow municipalities to gain a better understanding of what is occurring on the ground and solicit input on what programs or operational changes will best help the community.

During the course of the program, the 10 participating cities and towns will utilize knowledge gained from the data analysis, information gained from the Hester Street community engagement process, and technical support from Harvard and Tolemi to develop new and creative code enforcement strategies. In the summer of 2019, the participants will be eligible for innovation grants of up to $1 million to implement these strategic and equitable code enforcement practices.

The initiative is being overseen by Enterprise Community Partners (Enterprise), a national community development intermediary that specializes in affordable housing and community revitalization.
Cities RISE is one component of the New York Attorney General’s strategy to utilize funds resulting from settlements with large financial institutions to address continuing problems in New York communities as a result of the collapse of the housing market. Since 2012, the Attorney General’s Office has obtained more than $5 billion in settlement funds for New York State. With these funds, the office has supported several initiatives to address vacant properties and blight which continue to plague communities across New York State.

“I would like to thank the Attorney General for the opportunity to participate in the second phase of the Cities RISE program,” said White Plains Mayor Tom Roach. “This program has helped us address the issue of vacant and zombie properties, giving us data gathering tools to identify troubled properties and assist at-risk homeowners. We look forward to continuing to work with the AG's office on this important initiative.”

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