On the recordJuly 23, 2015
as we have been talking about fixing our Nation's infrastructure, I want to raise a concern I had with one of the potential ways in which we are talking about paying for it. That is by using funds out of what is called the Hardest Hit Fund. Over the years, I have worked in my State of Ohio and around the country to help deal with this issue of abandoned homes. We are all concerned about communities that have blighted properties because they tend to be magnets for crime, for drugs, and for other illegal activity. It turns out that one of the best ways to increase home values in some of the blighted neighborhoods around our country and in my home State of Ohio is to actually take these abandoned homes, tear them down, and have that property be used for other purposes, whether it is new development, a community garden or whether it is simply razing the property to ensure that homes in the neighborhood are not affected negatively by those home values going down. There is a lot of information out there about this now because many States have become active in doing it, and it appears it is working. In other words, home values are increasing, sometimes dramatically, by taking down these blighted properties. I think, perhaps inadvertently, Members of this body who are looking at ways to pay for the highway trust fund extension decided that the Hardest Hit Fund was the place to look.…
