Route 680 merges onto High Street, dotted with sun-blanched two-story houses in various states of disrepair. Some sport shades of green unseen for decades. Porches frown as their left and right sides bow toward the mud below.
Glenwood Avenue greets visitors with paint-chipped homes, a handful of mom and pop convenience stores, an adult movie theater and a dead dog. But Youngstown, home of the Good Humor bar, wasn’t always like this. “It was a wonderful place to live comin’ up, and we loved it here,” says Tammy Thomas, Mahoning Valley Organizing Collaborative’s community organizer.
These days Youngstown has the highest foreclosure rate in the state (14.7 percent) and an astonishing 61.8 vacant structures per 1,000 residents compared to a national average of 2.63 per 1,000.
“Youngstown didn’t get like this overnight,” says the lifelong resident, who lived less than a mile from the Idora neighborhood and has family there. “[We] sat back, closed our curtains and let a lot of stuff go on,” she says. Now she and residents like newbie James “Big Jim” London are rejuvenating the city.
London, a self-proclaimed country boy who moved to the Mahoning Valey from Dubois, Pa., four years ago, is president of the Idora Neighborhood Association and the neighborhood block watch. He is also a member of the SUCCESS Grant committee and adviser of the Idora Wildcats, the 4-H group he started last year, for which he and 15 kids are winning awards. Since initiating the block watch, membership has increased from two to more than 250, and crime has decreased about 40 percent.
“I’m not no hero, I’m not no Superman,” says the towering, 6-foot-5-ish bodyguard. “But somebody has to do it because people are afraid they’re gonna get shot or something.”
In his home office facing the road, London admits his own fears. “I can’t say that when we did the [corner store] campaign, I wasn’t nervous. Somebody could just Uzi this house, and I’m sittin’ right here.”
Still the father of a 15-year-old girl and four stepdaughters persists. “It makes me feel good that I give these guys hope,” he says.
Hope and results. Since winning Dominion’s Community Impact Award last year, 18 to 20 of the 40 houses slated for demolition have come down, leaving Idora’s aerial view to look like a gap-toothed child. Plans for the vacant land include gardens, a food co-op and potluck barbecues. Crews will maintain the lots to prevent dumping of tires and other unwanted items.
Tammy Thomas likens herself to the Grinch. “My heart grew 10 sizes when I saw others taking pride in Youngstown again. Our city means just as much to us as New York does to New York.”