tangled titles<\/a>
\nSome homes are at risk because of structural failure nearby
\nBurden of demolitions affecting neighboring properties has shifted to contractors<\/p>\nPITTSBURGH, Pa. \u2014 At first glance, the row house at 418 Rochelle St. looks ordinary. Backed against a hillside in Pittsburgh\u2019s Knoxville neighborhood, its porch is messy, but that\u2019s hardly unusual.\n<\/p>\n
But if one were to walk up the front steps and peer through the window on a clear day, the view would be of the sky. Both stories have fallen into the basement.<\/p>\n
The story of how the structurally sound, owner-occupied home of a middle-class Pittsburgh resident became a heap of rubble threatening adjacent structures is also the story of how a city that has shrunk in population by more than 50 percent since 1950 finds itself so short of affordable housing.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we have a system that for too long has allowed houses that aren\u2019t paying taxes to languish, and people aren\u2019t living in them or taking care of them,\u201d said Bill Shimko, executive director of the\u00a0Hilltop Alliance.\n<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh has more than 20,000 vacant housing units, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. That number represents about 15 percent of the city\u2019s total stock. Thousands are unlivable or so-called \u201cdead-end\u201d properties, for which the owner died or departed without making arrangements to transfer ownership and left a \u201ctangled title.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause (the city is) not foreclosing \u2014 we\u2019re not intervening \u2014 these properties are simply inaccessible to the average person,\u201d said Sally Stadelman, acting executive director of the Pittsburgh Land Bank, an agency tasked with acquiring tax-delinquent properties and getting them back on the market.\n<\/p>\n
Nicole Green was living at 418 Rochelle St. in 2005, when a series of injuries she suffered on the job as a correctional officer at the Allegheny County Jail caused her to fall behind on her mortgage. She received a letter like many Americans did in the mid-2000s, in which her mortgage servicer told her it was foreclosing.\n<\/p>\n
She couldn\u2019t follow the payment plan the bank laid out to prevent foreclosure. So, she left and moved in with her mother elsewhere in Pittsburgh.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t want to be put out by the sheriff,\u201d Green said this past fall. \u201cI didn\u2019t want to embarrass my brother; he\u2019s a deputy sheriff. I vacated the property myself.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
So, it came as a surprise to Green this past spring when the city took her to court over code violations at her long-ago home. The city wanted the owner of the collapsed home to clean up the mess.\n<\/p>\n
While court records show the bank filed to foreclose in 2005, it never followed through. The house stayed in Green\u2019s name without her knowledge, as utility and tax debt piled up and the floors went down.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I knew that I owned it, I would have done more, and it would still be in good condition,\u201d Green said. \u201cI\u2019m in a different position now than I was then. Everything would have been OK.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Aimee Mangham, manager of outreach and services at the Hilltop Alliance, said she sits weekly in the magistrate\u2019s court in Carrick, where cases like Green\u2019s are adjudicated. She said Green\u2019s situation is not uncommon.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAt least once a week you hear the story that \u2018I didn\u2019t even know I owned the property,\u2019\u201d Mangham said, because owners left when threatened with foreclosure.\n<\/p>\n
The judge at a Dec. 11 hearing delayed ruling on Green\u2019s case, allowing a few months to try to engineer a solution. The city may front the cost of demolition and place a lien against the property to reclaim the tens of thousands of dollars, though that would make it virtually impossible for Green to sell the property.\n<\/p>\n
Dave Green, the director of the city\u2019s Department of Permits, Licenses and Inspections, said city code requires the city to order property owners to demolish unsafe structures before it intervenes. If the owner doesn\u2019t act, the structure can go on a list of properties for city-funded demolition, ranked in order of the danger they pose to the community. He said there are about 200 structures on that list currently, though there are far more that are condemned.\n<\/p>\n
Shimko said what happened to Nicole Green is a flaw in the mortgage system.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cUnless (homeowners) are able to track the foreclosure litigation and have an understanding of it \u2014 and without the help of an attorney that isn\u2019t easy \u2014 it puts them in a situation where they believe they lost their house and they take action to keep a roof over their heads,\u201d Shimko said.\n<\/p>\n
Green said if the bank had notified her they would put a lien on her house instead of foreclosing, she could have stayed and chipped away at the lien over time.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMy kids and my grandkids could be there,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n
The collapsed home on Rochelle is causing problems beyond its own footprint.\n<\/p>\n
Michelle Hoyle lives two doors down and fears her home is developing structural problems as a result.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThe foundation has been messed up,\u201d Hoyle said. \u201cI can tell there\u2019s some cracking, different things that I didn\u2019t notice before,\u201d and the issues seem to be \u201ctraveling\u201d toward her house.\n<\/p>\n
Hoyle, 48, said she grew up in the home, stayed in Knoxville almost all her life and moved back in when her mother became ill.\n<\/p>\n
Her mother died two years ago, and she worries she may soon have to leave the home they shared.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s happening more rapidly,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m going to stay here long. I believe this home is going to leave me before I leave it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
She said she can no longer exit through the rear of her house since 418\u2019s porch collapsed, leaving debris all over.\n<\/p>\n
Further down the row, there\u2019s a gap between two homes where one was demolished about five years ago (satellite images show it was cleared between late 2019 and late 2020). Shimko said that demolition turned out to be a \u201chack job\u201d and left an abutting neighbor with thousands of dollars in repair needs.\n<\/p>\n
That neighbor, 93-year-old Elaine Stevenson, said she pursued help from city officials for years before a contractor came by and patched it up in recent weeks.\n<\/p>\n
In the past, when the city had a row house demolished and a neighbor\u2019s wall was damaged, it was up to the neighbor to get it repaired. Rob Columbus, manager of the city\u2019s demolition program, said that in recent years the city shifted that burden to the city\u2019s demolition contractors \u2014 good for the neighbor, but more expensive for his department.\n<\/p>\n
He said demolishing a row home typically comes with problems.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s almost like pulling a tooth,\u201d Columbus said. \u201cThey borrow stability from one another. Once you pull one, they tend to shift. Those interior walls are not meant to be exterior walls.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Beyond structural concerns, Mangham said the proliferation of decaying structures throughout Knoxville is bad for the neighborhood\u2019s spirit.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt brings the community down,\u201d Mangham said. \u201cYou walk outside and it\u2019s a part of the unspoken culture that you have to look at something so horrible every single day.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s disheartening to see. It\u2019s a wonderful community, I believe. There\u2019s just some pockets that \u2026 you\u2019ll see porches have fallen on the street and they\u2019re just sitting there.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Hoyle said the rapidly decaying state of her building has her considering whether it makes sense to have the deed transferred from her late parents\u2019 name to her own.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cNow I have to think about if I should just walk away,\u201d Hoyle said, noting that the abutting units\u2019 condition would make it impossible for her to sell.\n<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s note: This story was originally published by\u00a0Pittsburgh\u2019s Public Source\u00a0and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article At a glance: A Pittsburgh row house collapsed after a foreclosure was filed but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":73950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[38279,38280,38281,73,75,32160,74,38282,38283,38284,38285],"class_list":["post-73949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-affordable-housing-crisis","tag-foreclosure-issues","tag-knoxville-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-housing","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-row-house-collapse","tag-tangled-titles","tag-urban-decay","tag-vacant-properties"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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