Mayor Tom Menino announced a redevelopment project starting in the Hendry Street Neighborhood located within zip code 02122. The following report in the Boston Herald discusses the revitalization efforts along with a reference to assistance from three mortgage servicers who have agreed to sell their properties to the City at a deep discount.

Mayor: ’We will fix Hendry Street now’

An army of city workers and housing officials led by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino descended on Dorchester’s Hendry Street this morning to start a rescue effort in the blighted neighborhood ravaged by foreclosure, abandonment and what officials describe as unscrupulous investors.

“This is a cancer that we have in our city, taking over our neighborhoods. We will not tolerate this cancer,” said Menino, surrounded by the city’s top officials. “We are going to take over this situation in this neighborhood and other neighborhoods of Boston.”

The effort, dubbed the “Hendry Street Project” on new signs affixed to the boarded-up properties, calls for the city to acquire the empty units at dramatically reduced rates and rehabilitate them as affordable housing. The city also is seeking to acquire at least five properties where the owners are not paying taxes, city officials said.

On Sunday, the Herald reported seven homes on Hendry Street have been left boarded-up or empty as a result of foreclosures, among them two triple-deckers condemned by city inspectors. Around the corner on Coleman and Clarkson streets, six more properties stand boarded-up and decrepit due to abandonment or foreclosure.

Countrywide Financial, Washington Mutual and Wells Fargo, which service some of the mortgages in foreclosure on Hendry Street, have agreed to cooperate with the city’s redevelopment effort by negotiating to sell their units at a deep discount, city officials said.

Pat Canavan, the mayor’s housing advisor, said the city is hoping to settle on sale prices around $30,000 for each condo unit. The minimum estimated cost of renovating each unit is $100,000, said Sheila A. Dillon, deputy director of housing at the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

The arrival of city clean-up crews and graffiti busters, who removed gang-related tags that covered many of the empty houses, sent a wave of cautious optimism through the neighborhood.

“It’s good that they are going to make progress,” said Terry Johnson, 43, who has lived on Hendry Street for three years. “They let the problem get out of hand.”

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