About 6 months and counting . . . when we had almost 400 homeless men in the shelter in one night this winter, how can we leave this building boarded up?
This house is across the street from my house. It is owned by Porchlight and has 8 units in it.
If it hadn’t been boarded up since last October, it would be housing for people who have experienced houselessness. I didn’t take a picture immediately, at least not for a week or two, but I did snap this photo on November 10th after it appeared this wasn’t a temporary situation.
I also had to go see what the notice said.
A month later, I took this photo, wondering why it was still closed. I tried asking, but didn’t get any answers.
Every once in a while, I see a light on, or someone working on something, but still its boarded up. I know from work, my staff have reported what terrible shape it is in, but they it doesn’t appear they are working to fix it up. Seems like they are just moving things around?
Every once in a while I get hopeful someone will move in . . .
But they board it back up. This is from February 25th – you can see stuff on the porch – but it wasn’t people moving in.
Tonight it looked like they were at least thinking about doing something
But after watching them stand on the porch for about 2 hours, they boarded it back up again.
I’ve asked neighbors, city staff and others who might know, but no one knows why it sits empty.
So still curious, why are 8 units that could be housing 8 houseless people sitting there empty.
And, fair warning. There are more blog posts coming . . . so stay tuned to learn about more housing units for the houseless that are disappearing before our eyes . . .