Forty years ago, Lucy Hazelett's well-kept home wouldn't have looked any different from others that lined either side of Delaware Street in Gary.
Today, her property's colorful flowers and trimmed grass are a stark contrast to the crumbling structures and empty, overgrown lots surrounding it.
"It hurts me when I look at the reality of it," said Hazelett's grandson Taiwan King, who helps maintain his grandmother's home. "Drugs did this to this community. It saddens me to see what it's become."
The section of Gary where Hazelett lives has the highest percentage of unoccupied homes in the region, a Times analysis of 2010 census figures shows. More than 43 percent of houses in her Emerson neighborhood are vacant.
Home vacancy rates throughout the region are rising in the wake of mortgage foreclosures, job losses and limited economic opportunities.
All but one municipality in Northwest Indiana and Illinois' south suburbs experienced an increase in vacant housing during the past 10 years, the Times analysis shows. Kouts was the only municipality to record a reduction in unoccupied homes since 2000.
Vacant properties can languish for months, years and even decades without a caretaker, dragging down nearby property values and residents' quality of life.
"I see a lot of properties coming and going back and forth," said John Rostankovski, designated broker of McColly Real Estate's Schererville office. "When a property is vacant, the grass is high, and inside there is a water problem. The property sells to an investor who lowballs the price. ... It impacts the value of your property."
Knock, but no one is home
The highest concentrations of vacant homes appear in sections of Gary, East Chicago and Chicago Heights.
Nine of the 10 region census tracts with the highest percentages of vacant homes are in Gary, 2010 census figures show. Census tracts are smaller divisions of counties.
Dunes Acres and Beverly Shores recorded the highest overall percentages of vacant houses in the region, though their vacancy rates were largely because of part-time residency.
The U.S. Census Bureau's count of vacant homes includes abandoned properties, units that are unoccupied but intended for rent or sale and units intended for seasonal or recreational use.
About 42.3 percent of Dune Acres homes were listed as unoccupied on April 1, 2010, when the census count was taken. Just less than 41 percent of Beverly Shores homes were vacant, mostly because of seasonal use.
Gary ranked third-highest in the region, with a 20.6 percent home vacancy rate, census figures show. Gary's landscape long has been plagued by abandoned buildings.
More than 8,100 residential properties in Gary are unoccupied, the Times analysis found. The Steel City has experienced a 51.3 percent increase in vacant homes since 2000.
While the vacancy rates were lower in southern Lake County municipalities, unoccupied properties still affected nearby residents.
Crown Point resident Ljupco Andonoski rented a home next door to a vacant house with a boarded-up front window and overgrown yard in the Liberty Park subdivision. He said he wishes someone would move in or tear it down.
"I haven't had a problem," he said. "It just sucks that there are so many homeless people out there, and the house is just sitting there."
Homes throughout the region have emptied in the wake of mortgage foreclosures and the economic downturn, region officials said. Other occupants just walked away.
Neighborhood impact
Lyvette Turk, programs manager for the Department of Redevelopment in East Chicago, said officials are using federal money to "rejuvenate" certain areas of the city.
East Chicago received $1.9 million through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Neighborhood Stabilization Program and $365,000 in Community Development Block Grants to combat blighted areas.
Officials bought three foreclosed homes and plan to fix them up before placing them back on the market. The city also partnered with a development group to build townhomes and single-family houses.
Some of the properties were built after knocking down blighted buildings, while others were built on vacant land that sat empty for years.
Turk said the biggest hindrance to continued neighborhood improvement is securing funding.
"It's not going to stop us, but it's going to slow us down," she said.
In Gary, city officials received $2.7 million last fall from the Neighborhood Stabilization Program to demolish vacant and dilapidated structures.
Critics have complained the city is lessening the impact of the funds by knocking down buildings throughout the city rather than in concentrated areas.
Jeffrey Johnson, a community development activist and member of the Glen Park Community Development Corp., said Gary officials need to take down a whole block of vacant homes if they want neighborhood impact.
"They're piecemealing and putting a Band-Aid on the situation," he said.
City officials did not return calls seeking comment.
Johnson said the city shouldn't just tear down all the properties without a plan to put something in their place. He said more businesses and residents should be brought into the area where he lives near Indiana University Northwest.
"This is a prime area for reinvestment if we become forward-thinking individuals," he said.
In the meantime, residents try to protect themselves and their homes from the effects of nearby vacant structures.
Breeding crime
Hammond Police Chief Brian Miller said vacant homes can be magnets for criminal activity.
They are the first on a street to be decorated with gang graffiti, he said. The homes also are targets of vandalism, arson and theft of copper pipes.
Gangs take over abandoned buildings to use as their headquarters, drug users use them to shoot up and homeless people use them for shelter, he said.
"The overall impression and feeling in a neighborhood goes down," Miller said. "Criminals feel more comfortable hanging out and committing criminal acts in an area that looks like that."
Miller said broken windows and criminal activity make a house harder to sell, leaving it abandoned for longer.
Raynard Robinson, president of the Gary firefighters' union, said vacant properties pose a greater risk to firefighters. Most vacant homes aren't being maintained and could have structural problems when firefighters respond to fires, he said.
"You don't know the danger you're going into," Robinson said. "It's a constant danger when you go to an abandoned or vacant house."
He said vacant properties also may have homeless people living inside, particularly during the winter. Robinson said firefighters try to look out for signs of activity when they arrive.
He said residents can help combat problems surrounding vacant properties. He encourages residents who live near an abandoned house to help by cutting the grass at those properties and calling police if someone is going into them.
"The city needs to start helping ourselves," Robinson said. "If you can help us, we'll know how to respond a little better to these homes."
Picking up the pieces
Gary resident Arthur Clark said he does the best he can to protect his home and street from deteriorating further.
The 59-year-old retired construction worker cut the grass of the vacant home next door to his one recent sunny afternoon. Three other vacant homes are easily seen from his front stoop.
Some of the properties are boarded up, while others have broken windows, shards of glass clinging to the window panes.
"I can't stand it," Clark said, gesturing toward a dilapidated vacant home across the street. "They're eyesores. Sometimes I feel like going over there and just pushing it down."
Clark lives two blocks from IUN's bustling Gary campus.
He said he and his neighbors unsuccessfully tried to solicit help from Gary officials.
Clark said city workers sometimes stop by after residents call, scribble something on a notepad, then get back in their cars and drive away.
"It's like beating a dead horse," Clark said. "I just look out for mine."