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Sarnia

Local Group Targets Neglected Homes

A group of Sarnians is trying to eliminate dilapidated homes in the community.

The website sarniablight.com aims to draw attention to aging and neglected homes, with the hope council will amend bylaws to give the city more power to fix the issues.

Spokesman Ron Realesmith says they're not targeting home owners who simply can't afford to upgrade their properties. He adds things like paint colour or long grass don't qualify properties as being blight.

"My goal is to go after a few types of people," says Realesmith. "You're looking for property managers or companies that own multiple properties and do minimal work. Also, absentee landlords, or people that own one property or more and don't even live in our community. So, they're socializing the costs of having that property here and they're externalizing their profit, and the money they get from residents of our city leaves our city."

Realesmith says similar initiatives have been successful in Chatham-Kent and Port Huron.

The group has identified about 100 blight properties but they're only releasing a few at a time.

They've also started a Facebook page called Sarnia Urban Blight.

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