Vacant Homes Posing New Threat to Cities

Further east, Syracuse, New York, began selling vacant homes last year for $1 each to non-profit groups who promise to tear them down or renovate them. Last month, Syracuse Mayor Matthew Driscoll extended the deal to private companies.

The aim is to get abandoned homes back on the market in one to two years and back on the tax rolls.

"The foreclosure crunch has now meant that no neighborhood is exempt from having a vacant property pop up," said Kerry Quaglia, executive director of Home Headquarters, a non-profit that demolished about 100 homes and renovated 40 last year.

Some cities such as Cleveland are developing land banks to buy and either demolish or repair distressed properties.

"Because of the foreclosure crisis we are seeing this incredible glut of inexpensive distressed houses being sold at pennies on the dollar," Cleveland city councilman Tony Brancatelli said in a telephone interview.

"The mortgage companies don't want to hold onto them so they are dumping them on the Internet at a rapid rate. People are buying them 15 to a 100 at a time," he added. "One of the most significant parts of the land bank is stopping this cycle of abandonment."

Rhode Island, the nation's smallest state, is planning to fine homeowners 10 percent of a building's value if it remains empty a year after receiving a warning from the city, giving creditors incentive to unload vacant buildings even at a loss rather than to keep them and pay the tax.

David Cicilline, the mayor of Providence, R.I., said the reasoning was simple: "When you have people living next to a house that is boarded up and vacant, it becomes a blight on that neighborhood."