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Summary: Although housing abandonment is a relatively new phenomenon, it has generated concern among those who have experienced or observed its impact on the Nation's cities. Various studies have suggested that housing abandonment is a market phenomenon which is accelerated and exacerbated by poverty, racial tensions, rising crime, and poor neighborhood services. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the federal agency primarily responsible for urban housing programs, does not have a specific program for dealing with housing abandonment nor has it developed an overall strategy for combating abandonment.
Results of a questionnaire sent to the nation's 201 largest cities indicate that: (1) 113 cities have housing abandonment problems to some degree; (2) many cities have no statistical information on the extent of their abandonment problems; (3) no single accepted definition of the term housing abandonment exists; (4) in most cities, the vast majority of abandoned houses are privately owned; (5) no single cause can be blamed for housing abandonment; and (6) various strategies are used to combat abandonment. Three cities reviewed in detail, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and Detroit, have used block grant funds to reduce abandonments. St. Louis and Detroit have made little progress, but Philadelphia had a 24-percent improvement in 2.5 years. Demolitions accounted for 3,900 of the 5,600 eliminated structures, and the remaining structures were eliminated through several rehabilitation programs, including urban homesteading.
