![]() RUSSELL: At the end of our interview, Duheme takes me on a quick tour. He's actually hoping to monetize the YouTube channel where he's documenting his renovations.ĭUHEME: And if that happens, then I can start buying these properties up and putting this level of work and higher into them. For now, though, people like Shawn Duheme in Saranac Lake are largely on their own. There's even a bill in front of Congress to create a national network of them. Cities like Greenville, S.C., and states like Michigan have their own land banks. RUSSELL: The land bank can then decide whether to invest in the property and eventually put it back on the market or demolish it. JEREMY EVANS: When a town or village comes and asks the land bank for help with a problem property, the land bank has the resources, the technical expertise, the financial resources to say, yes, we can help with that. Jeremy Evans is the county's CEO of economic development. Franklin County, which includes Saranac Lake, is applying to create its own land bank. When someone stops paying their taxes and their home goes into foreclosure, a land bank can step in to decide what's best. But there is one tool that's become more popular on a more regional level, land banks. RUSSELL: There is no national strategy to deal specifically with vacant housing. MALLACH: The American economy, to an extraordinary extent, has kind of walked away from rural areas. Mallach says it's a sign of a broader economic problem. The issue is unfolding in Appalachia, in the Great Plains, in the Deep South. It's a national nonprofit focused specifically on vacant housing. RUSSELL: Mallach is a senior fellow at the Center for Community Progress. Housing expert Allan Mallach says the problem can start with just one vacant home in a neighborhood.ĪLLAN MALLACH: People start to say, if this property is being neglected, why should I bother? And it sort of creates a chain reaction. That's nearly twice the national average. RUSSELL: According to the Saranac Lake Housing Task Force, about 19% of units here are vacant. Classical music youtube how to#Duheme says, he gets it.ĭUHEME: If you don't know how to maintain that Tudor or that cedar or whatever, it's just going to degrade, right? And then it gets to the point where it's so expensive to maintain your home that you just let it go. But there are also a lot of places like this, rundown and abandoned homes. His plan is to renovate this place and sell it as a single-family home. RUSSELL: There were holes in the ceiling, rot in the wood, trash everywhere. Duheme posted a tour of the place on his YouTube channel last spring.ĭUHEME: You know, paneling, ceiling tiles falling down, falling down - a real mess. And this one popped up, and nobody bid on it. This house had been vacant for years when it went up for sale at a tax foreclosure auction back in 2019.ĭUHEME: All the properties I was looking at, I had physically gone and seen, were going way too high. We step inside what is essentially a construction zone. RUSSELL: Shawn Duheme is wearing a thick, blue hoodie covered in a thin layer of sawdust. RUSSELL: I duck under the scaffolding outside a home just a few blocks up from the lake. Some of those big, grand homes have been really well-maintained, while others have not. Back then, tuberculosis patients came to the village for fresh mountain air. North Country Public Radio's Emily Russell reports on one county that wants to unlock the housing stock that could be available.ĮMILY RUSSELL, BYLINE: A lot of the houses in Saranac Lake, N.Y., were built more than a century ago. But there are also millions of vacant homes and apartments across this country, especially in rural America. It can be hard even to find a place for sale. ![]()
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