GALVESTON — Vacant buildings that invite vandalism, vagrancy and crime have plagued island neighborhoods for years, but since Hurricane Ike, those problems have multiplied.
The Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit planning and development group, estimates Galveston is peppered with 9,000 vacant buildings.
While city officials are skeptical the numbers are that high, they acknowledge the empty houses and commercial buildings create a significant community safety problem.
Hurricane Ike flooded 75 percent of the island when it swept ashore last year.
Although many people made repairs and moved home in the last 12 months, some cannot afford to fix the damage.
Hundreds of homeowners are waiting on federal disaster relief funds to repair their properties, but others have given up and walked away, Police Chief Charles Wiley said.
“We want to give people every opportunity to take care of their property,” he said. “But with so much of this stuff, nothing has been done.”
Earlier this year, vacant houses became murder scenes after police found the bodies of two women within six blocks of each other on 39th Street. A grand jury in June charged David Ray Williams, 23, of Galveston, with murder in both cases.
Murders aren’t common, but squatting, drug activity and vandalism are, Wiley said.
Officers fear as the weather gets cooler more of the city’s homeless will seek shelter in vacant buildings, Wiley said. Often the squatters build fires to stay warm, which creates a significant chance the entire building will go up in flames, he said.
Several Galveston police officers spent much of this week chasing homeless people and curious teens out of The Pointe apartments on Stewart Road, across from Weis Middle School. None of the complex’s buildings, some of which are missing parts of their roofs, has been repaired more than 13 months after Ike.
Police officers strongly encouraged the apartments’ owners to make sure the buildings’ doors and windows were boarded up, as required by city code, Wiley said.
The city issues warnings to property owners who don’t keep their buildings secure. Owners who don’t heed the warnings face fines in municipal court and eventually a hearing before the city’s Building Standards Commission, which can recommend demolition for dangerous structures.
The city council agreed in May to use federal stimulus money to hire six new code enforcement officers.
The extra manpower will make it easier to identify vacant buildings, contact the owners and work with them to make the properties compliant with city code, Planning Director Wendy O’Donohoe said.
If negligent owners also are behind on their taxes, the city can recommend them to the tax foreclosure board.
If the taxes are paid, all the city can do is file liens against the property for the value of the work city crews do to clean up code violations.
