New Haven Independent

Foreclosure Purchase Keeps Tomatoes Alive

by Melissa Bailey | September 1, 2009 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Next door, tomatoes grow. Across the street, a neighbor clears weeds from a recently emptied home. That’s where the city chose to rescue its first rundown house from the wreckage of foreclosure.

The spot is 194 Dover St. in Fair Haven. City officials gathered there Monday to mark the launch of the city’s $3.2 million Neighborhood Stabilization Program, paid for by federal stimulus dollars. Through the program, the city aims to buy, rehabilitate, and sell 25 foreclosed homes.

The one-family home on Dover Street is the first, announced Mayor John DeStefano, Jr..

Officials chose the home, he said, because it sits in an area where the city can make a small impact — it’s one blighted spot on a pretty healthy street. The street hasn’t yet hit the “tipping point where we lose whole block fronts” due to foreclosure.

The acquisition is one initiative spearheaded by a coalition called ROOF, which formed in the wake of a national foreclosure crisis. Its members include Carla Weil executive director of the Greater New Haven Community Loan Fund (pictured at the top of this story, putting up a banner for the event).

ROOF used computer models to identify the right spot to target the limited money it has to fight foreclosure — “tipping point,” as opposed to foreclosure-ravaged, neighborhoods.

The Dover Street home has been vacant for one year. It’s one of six properties on the street that have fallen into foreclosure in the past nine months.

The city bought the house, said DeStefano, as a preventive measure, “to keep this from spreading around.”

“Spreading around” would mean more work for the man across the street, who was tearing out chest-high weeds from 193 Dover St. Monday. That property just became emptied by foreclosure in May. “Spreading around” would also mean fewer carefully cultivated tomato plants, like these ones, which were ripening in the front yard of the home next to 194 Dover St.

To keep the tomatoes alive, so to speak, the city snatched up 194 Dover St. for $34,700 in a negotiated purchase from Wells Fargo Bank.

The spacious, 1,600-square-foot home at 194 Dover (pictured) needs a lot of work, said Cathy Carbonaro-Schroeter, deputy director of the city’s anti-blight agency, the Livable City Initiative. Estimated rehab costs, including fixing up the furnace and roof, total around $150,000. With so much rehab needed, it would be hard to find someone who could afford to fix it up — and live in it.

“This could have sat here for years,” she said. “It would deteriorate the neighborhood.”

In order to speed up the process, the city isn’t waiting for aldermanic approval to buy and dispose of the properties. Instead, the Economic Development Corporation of New Haven (EDC) is buying the homes, picking developers to fix them up, and selling them. The fast-tracked process was approved by aldermen in March. The city’s LCI department is working closely with the EDC on implementing the plans.

For each of the 25 homes it intends to buy, the EDC will put out requests for proposals from bidders seeking to do the rehab. After fixing up the home, the developer will sell it, for no profit, to someone who intends to live on the street. The new owner has to be someone with a household income of less than 120 percent of New Haven’s area median income, which is $96,240 for a family of four.

The EDC has also bought a second house, 35 Stevens St. in the Hill. The city aims to find those 25 homes and purchase them by the end of the year, said Carbonaro-Schroeter.

As for 194 Dover St., officials said they hoped a new owner can move in by the end of the year.

That means neighbors won’t have to concern themselves with the spreading problems that can stem from a vacant home.

That’s good news for the man who was leaning on his porch railing on the corner of Rowe and Dover Monday. Below him lay a newly tiled garden, with a bed of earth bordered by stones formed in the shape of a heart. Asked about the house a half a block away, he said he didn’t know much about the house.

“I don’t worry about that,” he said. “I keep up mine.”

Previous Independent coverage of New Haven’s foreclosure crisis:

• Foreclosed House Flipped, Then Burned
• Rerun On Atwater Street
• City Left Holding Foreclosed House
• WPCA Fails To Uproot Family
• A New Haven Dream Foreclosed
• This Is The Face Of Deutsche Bank
• Out-of-Town Bankords Respond To Call
• Banks Duck City On Foreclosed Homes
• Rescue Squad Hunts For “Tipping Points”
• John Wins A Loser
• Still A Bargain, Foreclosure Price Zooms
• Flippers Get 2nd Shot At Fixer-Upper
• Suburban Cop Finds A City Steal
• Absentee Banklords Thwart Foreclosure Sales
• City Forecloses On 40 Lots
• Crowd Seeks Cure For “Mortgage Distress”
• Donovan: “Help Is On The Way”
• Judge Forces WPCA To Give Mom A Chance
• WPCA Uproots Tenants, Too
• Home-Rescue Squad Ignores WPCA
• Sewer Agency Unloads House
• Foreclosure Evictions Halted
• Let The Bank Have It, This Time
• Hazel St. Sale Reflects Economic Climate
• Hill Foreclosure Triggers Memories, & Prayers
• Foreclosure Fee-Slashing Judge Leaves Town
• She’ll Be Watching Deutsche Bank
• A Last Pre-Foreclosure Look At A Lifetime Past
• New Yorker Snags Foreclosed-Upon Gem
• Foreclosure Dream Goes Sour
• Judge Slashes Foreclosure Bounty
• Tax Break Saves Woman’s House
• Bank Replaces “Gunshot Alley” Landlord
• Foreclosure Bill OK’d
• Singh Seeks Home For A Song
• Foreclosure’s Neighbor Worries More About Speeding
• Networking Replaces Foreclosure at Christy’s
• Foreclosure Bargain — & Renewal — Jeopardized
• Bank Outbids Akbar; Family May Keep Home
• “So Don’t Worry About Pablo”
• Bankruptcy Postpones Foreclosure
• Next-Door Foreclosures, 53 Years Apart
• They Met On Foreclosure Way
• Little Garage Draws Big Bids
• A 2nd Chance on Lewis Street
• Foreclosure Attracts New Breed of “Specialist”
• In Foreclosures, Judge’s Hands Tied
• Home Saved From Foreclosure. Cycle, Too
• A House For Precious?
• Deutsche Bank Grabs Dixwell Condo
• Reluctant Bidder Snags F. Haven Bargain
• Well, There’s Always Powerball
• Neighbors Retrieve Home From Bank
• Somebody Has Plans For Bassett Street
• Foreclosed, the Khennavongs Leave the Santanas
• Foreclosure Steal May Be Too Good
• 2nd Foreclosure in 3 Months Dims Bright St.
• After Foreclosure, W’ville Owner Still Hopes To Sell
• He’s Not Buying, Yet
• Quiet Foreclosure on Porter Street
• 3 Minutes Too Late
• Historic Gambardella Property Foreclosed
•2 Homes Lost, 1 Gained
• “Everybody’s Got To Eat”
• More Foreclosures, More Signs
• Foreclosure Sale Benefits Archie Moore’s
• Rescue Squad Swings Into Action
• A Bidder Shows Up
• Bank Beats Tanya’s Bid
• Westville Auction Draws A Crowd
• DeStefano: Foreclosure Plan Ready
• Can They Help?
• “We Should Over-Regulate These Bastards”
• Rosa Hears of Rescues
• WPCA Grilled on Foreclosures
• WPCA’s Targets Struggle To Dig Out
• Sue The Subprimers?
• WPCA Hearing Delayed
• Megna’s “Blood Boils” at WPCA Tactics
• Goldfield Wants WPCA Answers
• 2 Days, 8 Foreclosure Suits
• WPCA Goes On Foreclosure Binge
• A Guru Weighs In
• WPCA Targets Church
• Subprime Mess Targeted
• Renters Caught In Foreclosure King’s Fall
• She’s One Of 1,150 In The Foreclosure Mill
• Foreclosures Threaten Perrotti’s Empire
•“I’m Not Going To Lay Down And Let Them Take My House”
• Struggling Couple Sues Over “Scam”

To learn about the ROOF Project, a community-wide effort to help New Haveners navigate the foreclosure crisis, click here.

The following links are to various materials and brochures designed to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

How to prepare a complaint to the Department of Banking; Department of Banking Online Assistance Form; Connecticut Department of Banking, Avoiding Foreclosure; FDIC Consumer News; Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut, Inc; Connecticut Bar Association Lawyer Referral Service.

For lawyer referral services in New Haven, call 562-5750 or visit this website. For the Department of Social Services (DSS) Eviction Foreclosure Prevention Program (EFPP), call 211 to see which community-based organization in the state serves your town.

Click here for information on foreclosure prevention efforts from Empower New Haven.

Share this story

Share |

Comments

Posted by: lance | September 1, 2009 9:41 AM

I checked the EDC website to answer a few questions. Do they go with the low bidders, or is there other..err....."requirements"?

Also, how do they determine the selling price when repairs are complete, and how do they decide who gets to buy it?

The reason I ask is because it seems the stimulus bill provisions heavily favor minorities, as does a lot of what Destafano has his hands in. A little transparency in this area would be nice, because racial discrimination is wrong any way you slice it.

Posted by: Esbe | September 1, 2009 11:11 AM

Lance -- are you referring to the 1/3 of stimulus spending that consists of tax cuts? Combined, I guess, with a belief that "minorities" pay most of the taxes and therefore get most of the benefit of tax cuts? Or are you referring to the large amount of stimulus $$s that Yale has received? Yesterday you said that was a sign that the stimulus bill is intended to "kneecap successful people." So I guess you think that Yale is mostly populated by unsuccessful minorities? Or maybe you are referring to the $8 billion for high speed rail, combining that with an odd belief that most of the folks on the all-business/first class Acela service are also unsuccessful and/or black.

And I suppose that the financial bailout trillions went to pay for super-large bonuses to all of those overwhelmingly black Wall Street executives. Yep, it is a real crime that Pres. Obama spends all our money on black folks!

Posted by: lance | September 1, 2009 12:23 PM

esbe, don't put words in my mouth.

i was talking about the pell grants which benefit minorities disproportionately
http://www.collegescholarships.org/grants/minority.htm

also the set asides in the weatherization charade, as well as who gets the free improvements.

also the provision in the health care bill for free tuition for minority students and the money alotted to new urban health centers.

and lets not leave out the big bucks directed at inner city schools.

don't even try to play it like obama isn't trying to hook the brothers up over the whites. and you know as well as i destafano does the same thing.

a lot of people know it, but most are afraid to say it for fear of being labeled a racist. i've had conversations with black public officials, health care professionals, major and minor league baseball players, and they know the time about obama. we've had a few good laughs about it.

Posted by: robn | September 1, 2009 12:43 PM

LANCE

snap!

Posted by: Esbe | September 1, 2009 7:05 PM

Lance -- you are opposed to PELL GRANTS? A program to help poor kids go to college and make something out of their lives? On the grounds that poor kids are "disproportionately minority" and that therefore any small attempt to help poor folks is racist? Do you call the Bush tax cuts racist because the money went disproportionately to whites?

You don't need me to put words in your month to make you look bad, you are doing fine all on your own.

Posted by: CH | September 1, 2009 8:42 PM

Lace

The city, Obama or anybody in general who is around you is going to have a hard time to please YOU.

Posted by: lance | September 1, 2009 10:59 PM

as a matter of fact i do have a problem with pell grants regardless of race. what it boils down to is financially responsible parents have to pay the tuition of the kids whose parents don't work enough, don't save enough, or are absent altogether.

and as far as the bush tax cuts favoring whites, that's a load of crap. rich people already pay way more than they should. if some person pays 100k in income tax and 10k in property tax they get the same exact services as the person paying 15k a year in income tax and 4k in property tax. and they get a lot less in services than the woman spitting out kids in a section 8 house who pays no taxes.

and look at the cash for section 8 housing set aside in the stimulus bill. it's whack.

esbe, it appears you're a socialist and i'm a capitalist who doesn't think minorities should get preferential treatment.

I'm still wondering about my initial question though. Does anyone know if EDC, like the stimulus bill and obamacare bill, have racial preferences written right into the guidelines?

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | September 2, 2009 10:10 AM

Hey Lance Here is a program favoring rich white men and even give them preferential treatment at the expense of the tax payers in which the tax payers are still paying today and it cost more than section 8 programs or pell grants.

http://rationalrevolution.net/war/bush_family_and_the_s.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDofbll86dY&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ekeatingeconomics%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

Posted by: lance | September 2, 2009 1:16 PM

still running against gwb i see 3/5ths.

you and your communist left wing america haters are going down.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

you might as well call william ayers now and get the bomb recipes because the days of your people running, and ruining, america are fading faster than you could say "god damn america". and i suspect you've said that alot. lol.

Posted by: THREEFIFTHS | September 2, 2009 4:10 PM

Hey Lance My man,You said commuist left wing american haters.How about these Right wing haters
who sell american out, Start with with this one. t.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hanssen

http://www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/hanssen/hanssen.htm
How about good old american flag waving Henry ford.

http://modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/ArticleDisplay.php?Article=HitlerCh06#Backer

Hey Lance you said you are a capitalist,So here are some good old apple pie amercan capitalist.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Wall_Street_Rise_Hitler.html
Now we can't leave out the Good old capitalist Prescott Bush.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Trading_Enemy_excerpts.html

Enjoy and god bless right wing american.

P.S. Forgot good old Scooter Libby and his main man Dick Cheney.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Libby
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/2009/02/16/2009-02-16_exvp_dick_cheney_outraged_president_bush.html

Posted by: CH | September 2, 2009 7:53 PM

Just ONE.. more way to see america

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G44NCvNDLfc

Posted by: lance | September 3, 2009 3:40 PM

can someone answer my initial question?

three fifths, who's this iranian Hassan Nemazee dude?

Sections

Neighborhood News

Special Sections

Legal Notices

Some Favorite Sites

Government/ Community Links

Flyerboard

[ Flyers by PaperG ]

N.H.I. Site Design & Development

NHI Store

Buy New Haven Independent Stuff