News & Reports

Current | Archived

Battling foreclosure’s blight

When homes are boarded up and taken over by the bank, the neighbors know well the decay, crime and danger that can follow.

By Georgia Pabst of the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Nov. 23, 2009

Willie Davis is the youth pastor at Greater New Birth Church and has seen the toll that foreclosures have taken on the neighborhood.

Close Seven years ago the Greater New Birth Church built a new house of worship that’s a bright and sturdy structure on the corner of N. 22nd and W. Center streets.

The needs for food, jobs and counseling have remained the same for the church, which was designed to serve the low-income Amani neighborhood, youth pastor Willie Davis said.

What has changed, he said, is the growing foreclosure crisis that’s cast a shadow over the neighborhood. More and more homes have been boarded up and abandoned, left to decay and serve as magnets for crime, vandalism and growing fears for those who remain.

An estimated 80 homes within a six-block radius of the church have been boarded up or abandoned, he and others who walked and surveyed the neighborhood said.

“The foreclosures combined with job layoffs have been devastating,” said Bishop R.J. Burt, the leader of the church.

Read More.