Elizabeth Brubaker strode up to a boarded-up abandoned home in Lancaster's Piute neighborhood and enthusiastically rattled off the city's plan to fix it up.
"We'll go from asphalt to concrete," said Brubaker, Lancaster's director of housing and neighborhood revitalization, as she gestured toward the driveway. "We'll do hardscape out front, so that we're not utilizing water. But we're going to leave in the trees. We'll eliminate the wood siding and do block walls. And we'll put in a roll-up garage."
When renovation is complete, the home will be put up for sale to low- and moderate-income earners. The effort is part of a program to stem the deterioration of neighborhoods that have been slammed by the nation's home foreclosure crisis.
While other cities are hoping for federal aid to help them address the problem, Lancaster is using city funds to buy, renovate and sell vacant homes. The need is clear.
In the first six months of this year, there were 3,518 foreclosures in the Antelope Valley's largest cities of Lancaster and Palmdale, compared with 2,383 for all of 2007, according to statistics from the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance.
More than 6,000 notices of default were issued to homeowners in the two cities from January through June -- almost matching the total of 6,372 for all of 2007.
Lancaster's renovation of homes will go hand in hand with general infrastructure development, including road maintenance, Brubaker said.
"We're trying to take all the tools in the toolbox to improve whole neighborhoods," she said. "The ultimate goal is to make the city of Lancaster a place where people want to live, work, play and stay."
So far, Lancaster's Redevelopment Agency has agreed to spend more than $4.1 million to acquire and refurbish 41 homes. The city took ownership of the first six properties beginning in May.
Lancaster's program began well ahead of a federal housing bill signed in July by President Bush that will award almost $4 billion in Community Development Block Grant funds to local governments to buy and rehabilitate foreclosed properties.
Los Angeles County does not have a program for reclaiming and fixing foreclosed homes. Housing activists in the city of Los Angeles have lobbied heavily for a share of the federal grant.
While they await federal funds, many Southern California cities are relying primarily on code enforcement to prevent neighborhoods from being blistered by blight.
