EDITORIAL URBAN REVIVAL

Neighborhoods will benefit from ownership plan

7:23 PM Tuesday, January 26, 2010

If you want to gauge the health of a neighborhood, look at the ratio of owners to renters.

If it’s trending toward renters, the neighborhood is headed down.

Homeowners simply have more skin in the game when it comes to keeping up their properties.

That’s why the recent news that the city will get $6.1 million in federal stimulus funds matters. In an era of unprecedented foreclosures blighting Springfield, this will be good news for two city neighborhoods that were headed in the wrong direction.

The idea is unique and worth exploring.

Houses near Wittenberg University and the new Springfield Regional Medical Center will be fixed up and sold to employees of those two institutions.

Both of those areas have been headed away from ownership.

By using some financial carrots, university and hospital employees will be drawn to buy those houses, and that will bring the kind of stability that can turn around a neighborhood in transition.

There are many streets in Springfield where the balance of renters to owners has tipped too far toward rentals.

Unfortunately, most do not have institutions like a university or hospital to anchor a project like this.

But turning around two neighborhoods is a good start in attacking a problem that can and is affecting the livability of Springfield.

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