Courtesy of Tony Kelly.
- There are thousands of homes left vacant from abandonment or foreclosure in Ohio.
- Policymakers are spending $150 million to raze thousands of homes to perk up local neighborhoods.
- Tony Kelly said the demolitions improved his area, from luring residents to lifting home values.
In 1989, Tony Kelly spent $20,000 on a three-bedroom home in Campbell, Ohio, a small town outside of Youngstown.
Kelly, now a foreman responsible for maintaining the county's roads and bridges, moved into the home with his wife and two sons. In the decades following his purchase, what he described as a vibrant suburb for working-class families took a turn for the worse as Ohio's economy suffered from the collapse of its once-booming steel industry and the fallout from the 2008 real estate crisis.
As local businesses shuttered and households lost their sources of income, many residents ended up in foreclosure or relocated to cities with better job prospects. The problems have persisted: In the first quarter of 2023, 1.3 million residential properties were vacant across the US, according to real-estate research firm Attom. At the end of 2019, Attom found, Ohio was among the states with the highest number of vacant homes, with 3.8 million.
Kelly told Insider how he feels the abandoned properties marred his community.
"Some homes were just empty for so long," said Kelly, now 59. "They were a magnet for rats. Kids would start fires or damage them. It was dangerous and unhealthy."
With many cities in Ohio experiencing similar conditions, state policymakers voted to spend nearly $150 million to tear down thousands of rundown commercial and residential buildings.
"There are dangerous, blighted buildings all over Ohio that are nothing more than eyesores that restrict new development," Gov. Mike DeWine said in a 2021 statement announcing the Ohio Building Demolition and Site Revitalization Program. In 2022, when DeWine laid out the 2,275 buildings across 42 counties slated for the wrecking ball, he added, "We're not just tearing down dilapidated buildings, we're helping to make communities across the state better places to start a business, raise a family, and build a bright future."
New York, Michigan, and Massachusetts have launched mass demolition programs as local municipalities look for ways to raise property values and encourage the eventual development of livable homes that boost housing supply. In some cases, the razing of vacant and abandoned homes also "reduces gun violence and other violent crime," Christina Kelly, head of planning and neighborhood revitalization at Michigan's Genesee County Land Bank Authority, told Reuters in 2022.
Kelly is experiencing the mass demolition firsthand
In January, the total number of demolition projects funded through the program reached 3,699. In Kelly's Mahoning County, 598 properties were earmarked for demolition as of December 2022. Of this total, 104 properties are located in Campbell. (It is unclear how many have already been torn down.)
The demolition program has also given residents an opportunity to invest in real estate. Once a home is knocked down, residents can purchase its lot for relatively cheaply depending on where they live.
The Mahoning County Land Bank Authority, for example, allows residents of owner-occupied homes to request vacant lots that share at least 75% of a common boundary with their own property.
Kelly purchased two razed lots on both sides of his home, tripling the size of his property. One cost $200, and one was just $1. In 2020, he sold the expanded property for $60,000 — about $40,000 more than what he initially paid — and moved into another home nearby.
"The demolitions helped to raise property values in the city, making the town more attractive to purchase and build houses," he said. Between January 2020 and January 2023, home prices in Youngstown climbed by more than 60%, from $30,708 to $50,065, according to Zillow. Even though home prices rose in every US housing market during that time period, 60% is a particularly large increase.
Razing decrepit properties has also helped improve the neighborhood in other meaningful ways, Kelly said.
"It made people more proud of their homes," he said. "People are planting more flowers, cutting their grass more often, and not leaving trash out in the yard. It made a difference."