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NBC4i.com wrote
Franklinton Residents Push For Rebirth
Thursday, Apr 03, 2008
By Denise Yost
A neighborhood with a bad reputation is seeing a rebirth. Franklinton is an area just west of downtown Columbus. For years, the area has been thought of as run down, but it’s now becoming a location of news development.
For the first time in years, the neighborhood is rebuilding, and several local and state agencies are helping to rehabilitate houses and build new ones.
“People interested in moving here are surprised by the quality of houses you can get out here and quality of people out here,” said Jim Sweeney, of Franklinton Development Association.
Comments
- cheap: i highly recommend the Millersport sweet corn festival of course,the cor
- Jimmy Mak: Thanks for the write-up! Just to clarify - this is the third year we've do
- Briana Henry: Well, eventually they plan to add more bands from the region...gotta start
- bucki12: I like the business model, but the internet sales part seems like something
- racheltb: I don't see the Ohio Shrimp Fest on the list. It is truly a good time. h
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Franklinton Residents Push For Rebirth
By: Walker
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It’s great to clean up the neighborhood and everything, but maybe we should make it so that poor people don’t need to steal copper wiring from old houses in the first place.
So you’re saying all poor people over there are criminals? (of course your not, but I’m just trying to make a point). Or maybe you’re saying that we should completely get rid of poverty and in turn get rid of crime before we try and rehab a neighborhood (again I know you dont think that way). All I’m saying is we are talking about 2 different things here. This is prime land that people want to live in, if it’s rehabbed correctly. Some people might get pushed out in the process, but I’m sorry, I can’t feel bad about that.
So you should just push out my father, my brothers, my little sister, and my stepfamily? Including my Step Grandmother, who runs the Food Pantry in Franklinton?
All people who work 40 hours a week?
Not everyone is Franklinton is a lazy poor thief.
But a lot of people who seem to want to revitalise the neighborhood sure do seem to be assholes who hate blue collar working class people.
I don’t think the point of revitalizing any neighborhood is to “push people out”. Neighborhoods like Franklinton have a load of abandoned homes and razed land that sits empty. That’s where the potential lies.
The slow rise of property taxes isn’t going to push many people into moving very quickly. And if they own, they’re probably going to be able to cash in on their place with an increased value. I can’t feel sorry for that.
Guess that’s what makes me a bleeding heart liberal.
There will never be a shortage of poor neighborhoods.
How many people in Franklinton actually do own their residences, though? Aren’t most more than likely owned by absentee landlords in New Albany? (Or Texas?)
I haven’t looked recently, but the homeownership ratio is probably still pretty low over there.
Whether or not a neighborhood gets revitalized, you’re not guaranteed to be able to rent some place forever.
Don’t get me wrong though… I feel bad for the few people under very specific circumstances who actually lose something due to gentrification. I just think that it’s typically made into a much bigger issue than it actually is.
Guess that’s what makes me a bleeding heart liberal.
There will never be a shortage of poor neighborhoods.
There will never be a shortage of poorer neighborhoods.
I am an optimist who believes we can get rid of poor neighborhoods.
A.
Even a very poor person could afford to buy in Franklinton. I wonder why they don’t. With a house that costs $40K, you’d only have to make $15-20K a year – which is just a little over minimum wage full time. Rising property taxes are a concern, but are much more long range. Plus, if they do rise, the homeowner can probably get a lot more for their house. So they made a sound investment. I’m terribly oversimplifying this, but it seems pretty easy.
Outside of the government programs for lending, which I don’t know all that much about, with the mortgage issues over the last year non-conforming/unconventional lending has become pretty much non-existent.
Outside of the government programs for lending, which I don’t know all that much about, with the mortgage issues over the last year non-conforming/unconventional lending has become pretty much non-existent.
But would you need an unconvetional loan if you’re buying an inexpensive home? A minimum wage income could work fine for a 30-year fixed 5-10% down mortgage on a $40-50K home, no?
It’s not just that the working poor are being displaced. Yeah, it sucks when longtime residents of any class are forced to move, but there’s a bigger issue at stake. Just because a “bad” neighborhood gets turned into a “good” one, it doesn’t mean that anything substantive has been done about persistent social and economic inequalities. It just pushes these problems out of sight, so we don’t have to confront them with any urgency, and yet we still congratulate ourselves for helping a “broken” or “helpless” neighborhood get back on its feet.
There are long arguments both for and against gentrification and I don’t intend to revisit them here. I just don’t want people to take the process for granted or to think that there aren’t any negative consequences whatsoever.
And just to show I’m not completely without a sense of humor…
oh here i go.
i can tell you that we at the Franklinton Development Association Community Development Corporation are not trying to push anyone out. quite the opposite. We’re trying to revitalize f-ton in a way that is inclusive as possible. We build and rehab houses for low-moderate income first-time buyers, most of whom are from the neighborhood itself. We use all the state and city programs we can cobble together to ensure that they get a place that is safe decent and affordable – that they can own. We give them financial literacy training, homeownership training to ensure they have the skill set to keep thier homes.
the combination of very old, functionally obsolete houses and low property values is a problem here. real values go up and down but the cost of construction just goes up. It costs the same to do a decent rehab in f-ton as it costs in grandview but in f-ton the house won’t be worth what you have in it. there are homeowners here that would love to take out a home equity loan and do some major renovation, like maybe replace the front porch that rotted off in 1975, but guess what: their houses are worth so little that no bank is going to give them a loan large enough to make decent repairs. Nevermind the porch, how about lead, asbestos, ancient wiring and plumbing. now your into real money.
at some point you need to drive up the value so that people can invest.
a little history: the floodplain restrictions put into place in the 80′s prohibitied not only new construction (that wasn’t evelated above flood levels) but also any rehab that was valued at more that 50% of the homes original value. The old houses, many of which had been under water twice, just sat. And the value dropped and dropped.
As to who we are: our board of directors are residents, many of whom have been living in and fighting for this neighborhood for 40 years. Consider what they’ve delt with in that time. They run the area commission, the homeowners associtation, the historical society, the library, Gladden Community house, and several other groups advocating for and serving the people who live here. These people have given countless hours of their time to work within the system to improve this place.
http://www.franklinton.org
It pushes some problems and solves others. Some residents stand to benefit from a revitalized neighborhood, others may get pushed aside. I think in most instances it stands to benefit a community more than hurt it.
I don’t think there is any one single cure for the problems of downtrodden neighborhoods, and I don’t think anyone claims that gentrification is a cureall either. It is progress though. And an improved neighborhood that lifts some residents is better than a broken neighborhood that lifts no one.
Thats quite a name, really rolls off the tongue.
Are there opportunities to teach people to do repairs themselves or is there too much liability in that?
It pushes some problems and solves others. Some residents stand to benefit from a revitalized neighborhood, others may get pushed aside. I think in most instances it stands to benefit a community more than hurt it.
I don’t think there is any one single cure for the problems of downtrodden neighborhoods, and I don’t think anyone claims that gentrification is a cureall either. It is progress though. And an improved neighborhood that lifts some residents is better than a broken neighborhood that lifts no one.
Well put sir! also i forgot mention in my rant that the homeownership rate in f-ton is 28%. But that’s actually comparable to other center city neighborhoods. Franklin county is 50%.
Thats quite a name, really rolls off the tongue.
Are there opportunities to teach people to do repairs themselves or is there too much liability in that?
yeah i know, we use FDA.
MORPC i think teaches repairs as part of the ir homeownership education training (free by the way). It looks like there are more repair programs coming too.
Guess that’s what makes me a bleeding heart liberal.
There will never be a shortage of poor neighborhoods.
There will never be a shortage of poorer neighborhoods.
I am an optimist who believes we can get rid of poor neighborhoods.
A.
I think I’d say the same thing, actually. I just use that vocabulary because whatever is “poorer” will be called “poor” by the people of its day.
By the standard of the Middle Ages, even Detroit wouldn’t look too bad.
But a lot of people who seem to want to revitalise the neighborhood sure do seem to be assholes who hate blue collar working class people.
zach, im really not understanding where all this hostility comes from with you on the subject of franklinton. you should maybe explain what your concerns are, i would like to hear them. maybe instead of complaining, why dont you become more proactive and join in on whats going on down here. maybe show up to a commission meeting. theres one this tues at 6 30 at the library on town st.
Jim: Thanks for posting. I didn’t know much about your organization, and the NBC4 article was pretty simplistic. It’s clear I’ve got some more homework to do about the work going on in Franklinton.
its only if one can qualify for the loan. im sorry but alot of these people over here dont believe in using banks. or they cant use banks due to credit, or garnishments. you know the typical stuff that get people into these fiscal situations. even goverment lending or goverment mortgage programs wont touch people who have a nasty track record. alot of these people dont have utilities in there names. there in there 3 year old daughters name. then when they screw that up they use another childs identity. pretty typical stuff really.
Hey Brant, not too many people are aware of us or the other CDC’s that are working in columbus. we’re not particularly great at self promotion. we should work on that. that’s one of the reasons that i was so pleased with the nbc4 story – it could have been strait up about theft in the hood, but they did a nice job highlighting some positives.
i’d be happy to lead a CU tour of f-ton sometime. it is an interesting place. we can all pile in chris’ truck!