First kudos to the Lansing State Journal for its story about how the city of Lansing is more aggressive this year in tagging homes for code violations. Local coverage needs to be affirmed and its needs to be expanded.
With more and more homes inside the city becoming vacant because of foreclosure and other financial reasons, the city housing inspectors have been more aggressive and creative in putting different colored tags on houses showing the level of violation.
In 2004, there were 223 tags issued compared to this year when 920 tags were issued through Oct. 10. The news story says that homes with tags must be vacated until violations are dealt with.
Demolitions of unliveable homes in the city are also up with an average of 25 demolitions a year. According to the Lansing State Journal, at least 33 homes began the demolition process this year.
