article by Cain Burdeau, Associated Press
More than 3,000 lots flooded by Hurricane Katrina and bought with federal money in an emergency bailout sit idle across this city — a multimillion-dollar drain on federal, state and city coffers that lends itself to no easy solution.
An Associated Press examination of the properties sold to the government by homeowners abandoning New Orleans after the catastrophic 2005 flood has found that about $86 million has been spent on handling a total of 5,100 abandoned parcels. And there’s no end in sight to maintenance costs for perhaps most of the 3,100 properties that remain unsold.
More than 3,000 lots flooded by Hurricane Katrina and bought with federal money in an emergency bailout sit idle across this city — a multimillion-dollar drain on federal, state and city coffers that lends itself to no easy solution.This portfolio of overgrown urban wasteland and blight represents part of the storm’s difficult legacy that persists nearly seven years later. And with federal funding for maintenance running out, there’s concern the lots could fall into deeper neglect when this cash-strapped city is forced to pay for upkeep and that they could contribute to New Orleans’s staggering blight. At last count the city found an estimated 43,000 blighted properties, according to a city-sponsored analysis of U.S. Postal Service data.
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