The City of Chicago's Code Enforcement Department recently invited several representatives from Safeguard Properties on a tour of abandoned properties in Chicago.  The tour afforded the Safeguard staff a valuable opportunity to have a look at vacant properties and the hazards they pose through the eyes of the city's representatives.  The following is a brief summary of that visit with Chicago Code Enforcement.
 
The properties we visited were located in mostly middle income neighborhoods.  In some cases, it was clear that many of the houses on the street had been abandoned, but on other streets, we'd see a lone vacant property among other houses that were nicely maintained by their owners.  Many of these neighborhoods have block clubs (identified by signs the members make and post on their street corners) with people looking out for the safety of their community, and a solitary abandoned home here creates a real blight and a danger. Children climbed on the porch of an empty house on one street; on another, the inspector approached the house before we went inside but came back to the van saying that there were vagrants in the house right then.  Even as we sat in the city van for a few moments across from another vacant house, we watched an apparent drug transaction take place on the street in front of the house and then move around to the back of the vacant property.
 
In the various communities we visited, we saw some properties that had been properly secured to the city's specifications and others that were inadequately secured or completely neglected.  We also saw whole rows where the city had been obliged to demolish houses with unsafe conditions that had gone uncorrected.  We entered houses that looked salvageable from the exterior, only to find that a single uncorrected roof leak was destroying the interior of the property. 
 
The Code Enforcement representatives lamented the difficulties they often have getting responses from owners and other responsible parties about properties that are badly in need of attention.  They commented many times that Safeguard's regular communication with them has greatly helped their efforts to contact servicers and get problem properties promptly inspected and protected. 
 
In Safeguard's experience, many servicers may have avoided dealing with city code enforcement departments because they anticipated that the cities would have unrealistic expectations, like requiring servicers to perform extensive repairs or undertake curative measures to bring outdated systems up to current code.  In reality, Code Enforcement's main focus is on efforts to protect the neighborhoods.  They are looking to servicers to address basic elements for the sake of safety: assuring that properties are properly secured, that health and safety hazards are removed, etc. 
 
Throughout the day, the issue that the city representatives kept coming back to was the importance of communication.  If servicers are in regular contact with the city, Code Enforcement can notify them when issues involving their properties arise, facilitating efforts to correct dangerous or unacceptable conditions.  If there is no communication between the Code Enforcement Department and the servicers, opportunities to protect and salvage abandoned properties may be lost.

ACA Release #1479