Toledo to demonlish record number of abandoned houses

TOLEDO - Hit hard by foreclosures and the economy, Toledo is on track to demolish a record number of blighted homes this year.

Toledo officials expect to tear down more than 400 mostly residential buildings by the end of 2011. Already, the city has razed 351 structures, just one fewer than the record set last year.

Neighbors told The Toledo Blade newspaper that abandoned properties draw crime and scrap metal thieves.

City leaders said they're able to tear down so many of the eyesores because of more than a million dollars in demolition funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

That's four times more money than the department provided Toledo in past years.

But Toledo's manager of code enforcement said that funding will cover the cost of demolishing less than a third of 700 homes still on the city's tear-down list.