For decades Greenwood has wrestled with the problem of dilapidated housing, overgrown and trash-strewn lots and other signs of blight in this city.
Although the city has made some progress in getting owners to do right, the inventory of rundown and unkept property is so massive that it feels as if it will never be eradicated.
This week, the City Council gave its wholehearted endorsement to a new tactic being tried by Betty Stigler, the city’s code enforcement officer.
It voted to deem more than a dozen properties as a “menace to the public health and safety.” That designation, under Mississippi law, will allow city workers to go in and clean the messes up, then assess the cost of the clean-up to the property owners. If the owners fail to pay for the work, the city can get a tax lien on the property and could eventually becomes the “proud” owners of it.
Of the properties dealt with this week, a couple are vacant structures that need to be torn down. Most of the properties, though, are vacant lots that have gone unmowed for weeks or longer and become trash dumps.
Some of the property owners are from out of town, which is always a problem because they aren’t too concerned about how this city looks. But some are longtime residents who should care about the appearance of this community, who can do better but who refuse to.
When property gets to this condition, it’s not just an eyesore. It can become a home to vermin, snakes, mosquitoes and other pests — thus truly earning the designation of being a menace to the neighborhood. It also depresses the property values of everyone who owns a house or a lot around them, and encourages responsible property owners to move away. The blight leads to more blight.
We commend the city for trying to break this cycle. We hope this latest tactic will be successful. But we know the progress is likely to be slow at best. Decades of dealing with this intractable problem have proven that.
