Wichita resident Wenedra Bell grew up in a city-owned home on the south side near Hydraulic and I-135, and is now in the middle of an entire neighborhood of boarded-up homes. “We had block parties, the children were everywhere…it was nice. It was real homey,” Bell said, describing what the neighborhood used to be like. “It’s sad. It’s like a ghost town here. It’s not the same at all.” City Councilman Mike Hoheisel says the city owns nearly fifty homes in the neighborhood, and most of them have been abandoned and boarded up for about five years now. “It’s an understandable concern because you don’t want to see that in your neighborhood,” Hoheisel said. Hoheisel says the good news is that the city has approval from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as well as funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, to renovate and sell the homes twelve at a time. He says that while there’s always a lot of red tape dealing with Washington, one of the big advantages he’s had to get the ball rolling versus a similar city-owned ghost town sitting stagnant near 21st and I-135 is that it’s easier to get environmental approval from HUD in his area. “Each of these homes also has to have an environmental report about that thick coming along with it for us to put it back on the market,” Hoheisel explained.
Source: KAKE – News