Use blighted properties to fight housing problems

THERE IS SELDOM JUST ONE way to solve a problem. Instead, there can be a menu of options that can take you down different paths. The question is priorities. Do you want your task done quickly, cheaply, efficiently? Do you want it done green, or is supporting local business important? That means that sometimes the solution you pick might be able to kill two birds with one carefully chosen stone. Housing and blight could be those birds. The Mon Valley and the entire state of Pennsylvania is rife with communities dealing with blight. Population centers shift. Industries rise and fall, and new ones take their place. That leaves downtowns with grand old storefronts that have seen their last shoppers. There are factories where nothing is produced anymore. There are homes that once saw growing families but now stand empty and abandoned, pulling down the property values around them. At the same time, the state is dealing with housing issues. There is homelessness. There are rising rent prices. Westmoreland County had housing money from the pandemic that went unused because of people who fell between the cracks of what qualified for help and what didn’t. Addressing blight could help fill in the gaps and open literal doors when it comes to housing issues.