As its control of property in the community grows, so do questions about whether the Land Bank is fixing the problem of blight in the city or adding to it.
For anyone who has driven through Flint's neighborhoods, scenes like these are nothing new. In some cases, entire streets are lined with boarded-up or burned-out homes.
Some believe they should have been torn down long ago, and those trying to live or raise families in the area don't know where to turn.
They call Flint City Hall regularly.
"They just told me that one was on the list," resident Kevin Moore said.
"Nobody comes out. Nobody does nothing," claimed an unidentified woman.
As they wait, fears grow about children's safety around burned-out structures and boarded-up homes, and the rising number of criminals moving into the abandoned structures.
Frustration builds as crime seems to go ignored in sparsely-populated areas.
Sergio Barjas bought his home on the Internet. He saw people breaking into a nearby house. "Called police and they said make an appointment for the next day," as the break-in was occurring.
For those living in the neighborhoods, what's equally as frustrating is they don't know where to call for help.
One woman wants to call former mayor and current state Rep. Woodrow Stanley. Another said a call was made, but no one called back.
Some, like Cindy Gillie, claim they do know the answer, and put the blame for growing blight on the Genesee County Land Bank. "Druggies live there. Homeless people live there. Arsonists burn them down. It's primarily the Land Bank's fault. It's primarily their fault."
Gillie said she hears the Land Bank horror stories regularly while working at her husband's Coney Island restaurant in Genesee Township. She also hears it from her colleagues in the Genesee County Landlord's Association, and has had dealings with the Land Bank as a landlord looking to buy property.
She concludes that the Land Bank, which now controls more than 2,000 structures and 5,000 lots across the county, is operating as a slumlord. "They're the biggest slumlord in the city. They pay no taxes, there's nobody living there."
"If the Land Bank weren't in existence, these 5,000 properties that we currently have in the city of Flint - who would be boarding and securing them?" questioned Land Bank Executive Director Doug Weiland.
The slumlord charges are nothing new to Weiland, who points out that the properties weren't generating taxes before the Land Bank took control. Now they have a chance of being turned around, he said.
He invited us to take an in-depth look at what he calls the Land Bank's transparent system of inspection, documentation, rehab and resale that, he believes, clarify charges that have been leveled at the Land bank for years.
The highest on the list of charges is the Land Bank owns every boarded-up house in the city. "We don't own all of those. We own a little less than half of them."
Weiland would like people to see the Land Bank's impact like this.
He said there are 42,000 homes in Flint. Ten thousand of those, or one out of every four, sits vacant. Of those 10,000 vacant homes, about 6,000 are in such bad shape they need to be demolished.
And of that 6,000, the Land Bank only controls 1,000.
Once on the list, each property faces inspection and prioritization.
We caught up with one of four crews charged with inspecting every one of the 1,200 structures that were turned over to the Land Bank this month in what is being called a record-setting foreclosure year.
It is the inspection teams that help categorize new Land Bank properties for demo or rehab. The properties being inspected now that are possible candidates for rehab, Weiland said. They will go to a minimum-bid auction in September and then a no-minimum-bid auction in October.
"We report every sale at our board of directors every month. We have a citizens advisory board that looks at the sales every month."
In many of the 1,200 structures in Flint now controlled by the Land Bank, the needed rehab work outweighs the value of the home.
"They're keeping homes from low-income people who can't afford to buy them at auction. So the Land Bank is keeping them and not letting them be sold," Gillie charged.
"We sell 350-400 properties a year," Weiland said. "We regularly sell properties for a $1,000, $2,000, $3,000."
While hundreds of homes are sold every year, Weiland readily admits that they are left with many that don't sell because the cost to make them livable generally outweighs the average price of a home in Flint - about $15,000.
"They need to start opening sales of Land Bank homes to speculators and private homeowners," said Gillie.
"The problem you have, speculators who like to buy them for a few hundred dollars and then put them on eBay and try to flip them. And some poor guy in California buys them not knowing what he got," Weiland explained.
People like Barjas, who was excited to buy a house on the Internet from San Antonio, sight-unseen, now wonders about his decision. "I don't have too many things, but they broke into my house and took everything."
Homes like these that often end up back with the Land Bank.
"They should tear them down. They ain't fixin' them," Bessie Gullette said.
The biggest criticism that Weiland faces is that the Land Bank isn't moving quickly enough to eliminate the blight and the danger of homes it does own.
Weiland explains that it's a matter of money and scope. He says when the Land Bank was created eight years ago, they were dealing with a couple hundred properties a year.
When the bottom fell out of the housing market in 2008, foreclosures grew to more than 1,000 a year. This year, the number grew to more than 2,000, all of which went to the Land Bank.
So now he's looking at a demolition list that has grown to 3,000, and the demolition list has become a priority list.
First, emergency demolition; places where there have been fires and the properties are open. Dilapidated houses in otherwise good neighborhoods are second, and then areas of high concentrations of dilapidated properties are next.
To demolish all 3,000 structures would take $30 million and a lot of time.
"Those 3,000 structures, if we continue to do 500 a year, it will take six years. But more will likely fall into disrepair each year, so I don't think you'll ever get totally caught up," Weiland said. "The problem right now is that everybody would like to have this done immediately, and there's so much that needs to be done, it can't all be done at one time."
While the Land Bank has its critics, people like Joseph Villalpandl live in the middle of nearly vacant streets, but understand the need for patience. "The city had these houses on a list for umpteen years, and they've been talking about what they're going to do, but at least somebody's going to do something."
Actions that can be legally taken by the Genesee County Land Bank don't include the 4,500 boarded-up houses in Flint that aren't owned by the county.
That kind of blight, Weiland points out, continues to spread one structure at a time, and it's a community problem. If there is to be a solution to that problem, he says, it will take not only the Land Bank, but everyone left in the neighborhoods to pitch in and help.
Weiland encourages anyone with questions or comments about Land Bank property to contact the Land Bank online, in person or by phone.
The Genesee County Land Bank
Web site:
http://www.thelandbank.org
Phone: 810-257-3088
Address: 452 S. Saginaw St., Suite 200, Flint
