PUBLISHED 11/25/08 -----

The foreclosure crisis has created a glut of vacant homes around the country, many of which have become increasingly run-down because of vandalism or general neglect.

Vacant homes, especially in more modest neighborhoods, create problems because they are attractive nuisances. One deserted house identifiable by uncut grass or broken windows can bring down a whole street.

Now some U.S. cities are doing something about the problem  — and Bakersfield is among them.

Redevelopment agencies in cities like Lancaster are buying up these homes themselves, renovating them and placing them back on the market. In doing so, they are helping neighborhoods regain their aesthetic balance, stabilizing property values, strengthening the tax rolls and fulfilling their obligations to provide affordable housing.

It’s a wise and appropriate use of redevelopment resources.

Bakersfield has applied for $8.9 million in grant money from a $4 billion fund managed by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The idea is to buy foreclosed houses, fix them up and sell to low- and moderate-income buyers.

Kern County has applied for an additional $11 million, and the two entities are partnering with the Housing Authority in a $5.1 million program to make refurbished homes available in a lease-to-own arrangement.

The need is great in the Bakersfield metro area, where 5,559 homes have gone into foreclosure in the past 12 months. That’s one in 22 homes. The trend shows no sign of abating, either. Some 2,159 homes, or seven in 10 now on the market, are categorized as “distressed,” meaning they have been foreclosed or they are in the midst of a short sale.

Some of the grant money will go toward a down payment assistance program, said Donna Kunz, director of the city’s Economic and Community Development agency, which will buy up about 60 homes.

The program will also involve an acquisition demolition program. About 25 houses, past the point of saving, will be purchased and knocked down.

“They’re graffitied up, gang hangouts, places for vagrants,” Kunz said. “They don’t even make sense for an investor. We’ll hold the land for a period of time, maybe three to five years, and then sell it.” The city is not permitted under the law to own such property for more than five years, she said.

The local agencies must submit an action plan to HUD by Dec. 1 — same as every other agency in the country that hopes to get in on the program. Kunz expects to see the money by March 1, perhaps earlier, and in the best case scenario, could be offering homes for rent or for sale by July 1.

The county’s community and economic development expects to acquire about 200 homes in areas that have been hit hardest by the foreclosure crisis — about 200, mostly in unincorporated Bakersfield as well as Shafter, California City and other towns. The county will focus primarily on down payment assistance, although there will be some house rehabilitation as well, said Barry Jung, the agency director.

The Housing Authority will leverage its share of the grant money with private loans to make it stretch farther. Agency officials expect to acquire 60 to 100 for their target clientele —people whose income is less than 50 percent of the county’s median income. They’ll be set up with the sort of conventional, fixed-rate financing they’re most lilkely to afford.

“The idea,” said Stephen Pelz of the Housing Authority of the County of Kern, “is to help out the neighborhoods, turn some brown lawns green and get people into houses who might otherwise not have the chance to be homeowners.”

It’s encouraging that HUD is fighting blight, and that local governments are willing to invest in their own communities.