News Articles

By Mary Ellen Podmolik The brick bungalow in Chicago’s Auburn Gresham neighborhood doesn’t look like much from the outside, with its windows covered with plywood, silver tape dangling from a second-floor eave and a blue tarp stretching across much of its roof. Its interior looks even worse. But unlike a similarly boarded bungalow two doors away and tens of thousands of other vacant homes across the city and suburbs, this one and another in the Avalon Park neighborhood are special. They will be the first vacant houses to be overhauled and put up for sale as part of the Cook [...]

By: Allan Gallun & Micah Maidenberg "With more than 55,000 vacant homes in Cook County, government leaders are coping with a catastrophe that invites comparisons to the Great Chicago Fire. 'It's like we are standing there on the day after (the fire) and everyone's waking up and saying 'OK, how do we rebuild in this new world in a way that's smarter, knowing what we know now?' ' urban planner Marshall Brown says. Public officials, including leaders of the new Cook County Land Bank, will face some hard choices as they decide...." Read more

By: Mark Peters "As the foreclosure crisis swells the ranks of abandoned properties across the U.S., local governments from New York to Missouri are adopting a new strategy to acquire and return to the tax rolls tens of thousands of empty houses and vacant lots. In the past year, Kansas City, Syracuse, N.Y., and communities in Pennsylvania, among others, have set up "land banks"—independent authorities focused on turning around derelict properties..." Read More