‘I have to look at it every day’: Growing frustration with collapsing homes
ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. – Neighbors in unincorporated north St. Louis County have been dealing with the troubling sight of a partially collapsed house with no end in sight.
Resident Cleo Stern reached out to FOX 2 in hopes of a solution.
“Bottom line—look at it… I have to look at it every day,” Stern said.
The search for answers began with Councilwoman Rita Days.
“Well, it has been like that because no one has decided to address that. We have a lot of those properties in the unincorporated areas…they have not been addressed,” she said. “Initially, we were told by public works that they didn’t have enough money to address those.”
The St. Louis County Department of Transportation and Public Works sent FOX 2 the following statement:
“In reference to your inquiry about the partially collapsed house at 10060 Imperial Drive: Our Department of Public Workers’ Division of Code Enforcement has been involved with this property since at least 2016. The owner has been chronically non-responsive to our notices of violations and court referrals. We’ve attached multiple liens on the property as our moving contractor has cut the grass at this address many, many times in the past eight years. The house is on our demolition list and will be razed at the earliest possible date.”
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The County Council stepped into the issue two years ago, according to Days.
“The council put in $11 million of ARPA funding to address derelict homes, tear them down, or cite the owners,” she said. “We added three additional attorneys on top of lawyers…and we still don’t have the progress that I think we should have had.”
Days says there are several houses in north county that need to be torn down, and the $11 million was supposed to make the process go faster.
“Once the council restores the millions it cut from the budget, we will be able to stand up this ARPA program, which requires staff oversight to ensure compliance. We currently do not have staffing to do that,” a spokesperson for St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said.
But Days has a warning with there being no progress made.
“We need to get on top of all these because otherwise, you’re going to have a bunch of homes that are going to be collapsing. You’re going to have increased crime in the area,” she said.
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