Housing Rehabilitation Impacts on Neighborhood Stability in a Declining Industrial City

Abstract

This study explores the impacts of publicly and privately funded housing rehabilitation efforts in Cleveland, Ohio. The results show that (1) selective census tracts receiving publicly funded home owner rehabilitation assistance did not experience demographic, economic or property stabilization; (2) private borrowing for housing renovation increases as the number of home owners, median gross rents, median family incomes, median values of owner-occupied housing and median sales-to-median assessed market ratios increase and (3) heterogeneous populations, poverty incomes, high unit vacancies, high tax delinquencies and housing demolitions decrease home owner propensities to borrow for repairs and maintenance. Many neighborhoods have experienced incumbent upgrading, but housing disinvestment and property tax delinquency threatens neighborhood stability. Public intercession is unlikely to influence these real estate market processes because housing disinvestment is merely symptomatic of a deeper economic malaise. Only a dramatic economic upturn can possibly slow housing disinvestment. Otherwise, housing unit removal shall continue unabated, inevitably wrecking neighborhoods and frustrating public efforts.