How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Affect Communities

Vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties—including occupied properties in serious disrepair—impose significant costs on public health, property values, and local taxpayers.

Like ignoring a leaking roof, failure to address these so-called “blighted” properties costs more over time and causes compounding harm. Quantifying these costs is the first step to reforming the broken status quo, returning properties to productive use, and, critically, preventing deteriorated occupied properties from becoming tomorrow’s vacant and abandoned ones.

Defining “Vacant, Abandoned, and Deteriorated” Properties

Vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties are residential, commercial, and industrial buildings or vacant lots that pose harm to residents and their community. (Vacant property is inclusive of vacant buildings and vacant lots. A vacant lot is a parcel without a structure, which could include a previously developed lot or an unbuildable lot.) Their owners or managers have not kept up the property, walked away, neglected paying taxes or utilities, or defaulted on mortgages. Often these are referred to collectively as “blighted” properties or “problem properties.”

Deteriorated properties are structures in poor condition with damage or visible signs of deferred maintenance. They may be occupied or vacant.

Blight is a shorthand term many use to refer to properties they perceive as problematic in some way: appearing unsafe, visually unpleasant, or a threat to neighborhood property values. While a pervasive word in community revitalization, urban planning, and housing policy, Community Progress discourages using the term. It has historically been used to justify stripping low-income people and people of color of their homes in the name of “blight eradication.”

How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Harm Public Health

• Physical health: Long-term vacant properties are associated with many negative health outcomes for neighbors, including high blood pressure, cancer, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, high cholesterol, kidney disease, and stroke, as well as poor physical and mental health.
  • An analysis of US Census data on 107 cities found individuals who lived in deteriorated neighborhoods had higher rates of premature death, death from cardiovascular disease, and homicide.
  • A study in Philadelphia found children in census tracts with a higher percentage of vacant properties had a 1.45 times higher risk of elevated blood lead levels.
• Emotional wellbeing: In addition to the physical health impacts of vacant properties, living in a deteriorating home takes a measurable toll on mental health, with research linking substandard housing conditions to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and psychological distress. Visual evidence of vacancy and neighborhood disinvestment—such as boarded up properties, trash and dumping, and overgrown weeds—harms the mental health of neighbors, putting them at greater risk of sadness, depression, stress, and elevated rates of intentional injury. The percent of vacant housing in a community has also been shown to be significantly associated with increased mental health-related hospitalizations.
• Violence and crime: Studies have shown that violent crime, including assaults and gun-related crimes, increase in disinvested neighborhoods with vacant and abandoned properties.

How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Harm Individual Wealth

• Property equity: Owning a property is often an individual’s greatest investment and financial asset. Research has consistently shown that vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties reduce the value of surrounding properties, making it more difficult for owners to build equity and generational wealth.
  • For example, In Cleveland, Ohio, properties within 500 feet of a vacant, tax-delinquent, and foreclosed property lost 9.4 percent of their value.
  • In Chicago, researchers estimated that the presence of one tax-delinquent property reduced the average price of nearby homes by $6,310 to $12,872.
• Financial liabilities: Property owners near abandoned properties are often charged higher insurance premiums or even face policy cancellations because of the neighborhood instability caused by vacant properties. This leaves homeowners with greater financial liabilities.

How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Harm Public Finances

• Municipal revenue: Property taxes are typically the largest source of revenue for local governments. Research has shown vacant and abandoned properties lead to a decrease in taxable values of surrounding properties and increase the likelihood of mortgage and tax foreclosures nearby creating a harmful domino effect that creates revenue challenges for local governments.
  • The total costs of distressed vacant properties in Atlanta, Georgia, range from $55 million to $153 million in lost property values. This translates into lost property tax revenues of $1 million to $2.7 million annually.
• Maintenance and abatement costs: Local governments incur the costs of remedying nuisances and unsafe conditions, including boarding and securing structures, cutting grass, removing trash and debris, and demolishing unsafe structures.
  • The City of Toledo, Ohio spent $3.8 million in a single year on services related to VAD properties, including $1 million on code enforcement, $800,000 on nuisance abatement, $600,000 on police dispatch, and $1.4 million on fire dispatch.
• Public safety costs: Higher violent and property crime rates and the associated costs to dispatch police and fire services to respond to these crimes are commonly associated with vacant and abandoned properties.
  • A study in Austin, Texas found that “blocks with unsecured [vacant] buildings had 3.2 times as many drug calls to police, 1.8 times as many theft calls, and twice the number of violent calls” as blocks without vacant buildings.
  • A study in St. Louis found that proximity to vacant buildings increases the risk of both aggravated assault and homicide. Being within 450 feet of a vacant building increases the risk of being a homicide victim 4.6 times, while being within 750 feet of a vacant building increases the risk of aggravated assault 2.9 times.

What Happens if You Do Nothing About Vacant and Abandoned Properties?

The costs of the status quo are high, and inaction is not an option. Across the country, communities have shown that investing in solutions to address vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties is cost-effective and leads to healthier, more vibrant communities. This includes addressing deteriorated occupied properties before they become vacant, which is one of the most cost-effective strategies a community can pursue.

Understanding the true costs of vacant properties is critical to reforming broken systems so that every person can live in a neighborhood where they feel safe, connected, and have opportunities to thrive.

Solutions to Vacant and Abandoned Buildings and Lots

Revitalizing vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties is a complicated process that takes time, but it saves communities resources and improves the health, wealth, and wellbeing of neighbors and neighborhoods. Proven strategies that the Center for Community Progress advocates for include:

• Land banks: Public entities whose sole purpose is to acquire and temporarily hold and take care of vacant and abandoned properties until they can be transferred to new owners
• Vacant land stewardship: The process of repurposing and maintaining vacant lots
• Creative placemaking: Using art, culture, and intentional community development to activate spaces
• Strategic code enforcement: Improving the process local governments use to enforce state and local laws, codes, or ordinances pertaining to housing, building, or health standards
• Delinquent property tax enforcement: Improving state and local laws that deal with delinquent property taxes (e.g., so vacant properties don’t get “stuck” in a cycle of tax lien sales)

Communities nationwide are reversing the harms of vacant homes and abandoned properties by implementing proven solutions that support public health, safety, and local economies. Together, we can turn vacanat spaces into opportunities for vibrant, thriving neighborhoods.

Download our Cost of Vacant, Abandoned, and Deteriorated Properties onepager »

---

If you’re struggling with vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties in your community, check out our free online resources, webinars, and publications. Local governments should contact the Center for Community Progress at [email protected] for tailored solutions to assess the state of vacancy in your community and recommend policy and practice recommendations that revitalize neighborhoods.