Take a walk in some Erie neighborhoods or just drive around and you’ll see the result of years of neglect and decline. Homes, in some cases, literally rotting away. Missing siding, broken and missing windows, and peeling paint. Some homes are abandoned, but others are still occupied. Some of these properties are owner-occupied, but a large number are owned and rented by landlords.
The Erie City Government has known for years about the problem. In 2006, City Council adopted a residential rental inspection program to address what they identified at the time as “a growing concern in the community with the general decline in the physical condition of residential rental units.” But why is it that, despite the commitment of the city government in 2006 and financial investments to inspect every rental unit in the city since then, we continue to see so many tenants living in substandard housing? When answers are requested from the city code enforcement department, they remain unanswered.
The problem of substandard rental property in Erie is vast, and it is only one piece of the city’s larger problem with blight. An official city-wide examination of how we got to this point is needed, but no city government leader is currently calling for this kind of effort. So in 2024, I teamed up with the East Avenue/Hess Avenue Neighborhood Watch to take a deeper look into this small section of the city to better understand why, despite an active inspection program in place for 18 years, rental properties in the neighborhood continue to deteriorate…