New Jersey Communities Build Coalition to Track Abandoned Properties

The residents of Camden County in New Jersey, across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, banded together to catalog the abandoned properties in their neighborhoods, where the problem of abandoned, or "zombie" properties, is growing.

1 minute read

July 21, 2014, 6:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


Several Camden County communities - Collingswood, Audubon, Haddonfield, Haddon Township, Oaklyn, Pennsauken, and the Fairview section of Camden - have joined forces, enlisting the help of two doctoral candidates and a master's student from Rutgers-Camden's department of public policy and administration to identify the abandoned or derelict vacant properties in their midst," reports Rita Giordano.

"The hope is that the coalition will be able to convince banks that may have gotten the houses through foreclosure that it is worthwhile to sell them. At the least, it wants the banks and mortgage companies to do a better job of maintenance."

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