Dunkirk gets more blight funding

Dunkirk has already removed nine of its eyesores thanks to help from a state grant.

It plans to use the leftover money from that grant to eliminate six more.

Now, the city can add another five homes to that list.

Dunkirk learned Thursday from Indiana Department of Housing and Community Development that it has been granted an additional $97,000 from Indiana’s Hardest Hit Blight Elimination Fund. The additional money came from  funds that were turned back in to the state after going unused by other communities.

“That’ll get rid of the worst house we’ve got,” said Dunkirk City Council member Jack Robbins, who was spearheading a blight elimination effort even before grant funding became available. “It’s a good thing for Dunkirk. We don’t got a whole lot of things that can give us a shot in the arm like this.”

He pointed out that without such grant funding the city could probably only afford to tear down one such home per year.

The additional $97,000 announced Thursday is targeted for 126 E. Third St., 213 E. Washington St., 320 W. Washington St., 322 W. Short St. and 398 W. Lincoln St. All of those are currently owned by Jay County Commissioners and are slated for sheriff’s sales, and Robbins plans to attend Monday’s commissioners meeting to request that they be turned over to Dunkirk.

“It’s a win-win situation for both of us,” said Robbins, who has worked with the county to gain control of similar run-down properties in the past. “The county gets it off their records. We get it back … That’s five properties back on the tax rolls.”

Those homes will be added to the list of six — 146 W. Grand St., 213 E. Ohio St., 304 E. Ohio St., 327 W. Commerce St., 335 W. Commerce St. and 146 Grand St. — that were already on the list for removal with the $74,000 left over from the city’s original $176,000 in grant funding. The first $102,000 went to tear down nine blighted homes, and all of those properties have already been purchased by adjacent landowners.

The new list of homes, now a total of 11, will go through the same process as the originals in 2015. There will first be a public hearing, then bids will be accepted and a variety of environmental and other inspections will be completed before the houses can be torn down.

By the end of the year though, the goal is that a total of 20 blighted houses will have been eliminated from the Dunkirk landscape.

“That’s a big dent in the problem,” said Jay County director of community development Ami Huffman, who worked with Dunkirk to secure the grant funding. “I’m not saying it’s solved it yet … but, you take 20 rundown houses out of Dunkirk neighborhoods and that’s a big impact. … They went from being an eyesore and detracting from neighboring properties to being purchased by adjacent property owners and now being cared for.”