The City of Erie’s Redevelopment Authority has a program to address abandoned houses.
Its current list of blighted properties is close to 300, and executive director Aaron Snippert said the authority is in the process of addressing 63 more.
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However, a 2019 survey by the city showed the total number of vacant houses is close to 600.
Neither of the houses with fires overnight were on the authority’s list. Those that are on the list are visited by code inspectors to make sure they’re secure and nobody can get into them.
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But Snippert urges the public to inform code enforcement should they know of a house that needs their attention.
“We want to know. We want to get it on the list. We want to monitor it. We want to identify the property owner and try to reach out to them to try to rectify the situation or acquisition of it by the redevelopment authority or the Erie land bank,” Snippert said.