By Brenda Flanagan
Correspondent
Under assault from the mechanical claw, 15-01 Louis St. crumbled easily — red bricks tumbling — the first of Camden’s blighted houses to fall as the city spends $8 million to attack its list of more than 600 long-abandoned homes.
“These structures that are being eliminated are the worst of the worst units, left to deteriorate by absentee property owners, ultimately leaving this problem to the city and adjacent neighborhoods to deal with the issue,” said Camden Mayor Dana Redd.
The city doesn’t own these structures, but declared them public health hazards. And not just because they’re falling apart, according to Congressman Donald Norcross.
“This is about public safety. Make no mistake about it. These are crime factories,” he said.
Police say the so-called Hilltop Gang once dominated drug sales in this area — from its base of operations inside 15-01 Louis St.
“When we got inside the property, we found a gun safe. Inside the safe were guns, packaging materials, narcotics and the like. And we’ve given the mayor a list based on priority of the structures we see being utilized by the drug gangs. They’ve been put to the top of the list and are gonna be the first to come down,” said Camden Police Department Chief Scott Thomson.
“Well, it was a drug infested area,” said resident Bill Nickens.
Nickens says kids couldn’t safely walk down the street here.
“It was, you know, people running in and out the house, starting fires and different stuff like that. Now they’re tearing them down. We can do something different in the city,” he said.
Camden officials stated they tried to contact the property owners before moving to demolish the buildings, but the owner of 15-01 told the Courier-Post nobody reached her. Still, she reportedly claimed, she couldn’t afford to rehab the house, anyway. She hasn’t lived here for more than a decade. And politicians expressed little sympathy.
“I’m confident we’ll follow all the legal requirements for the demolition, but if you want notice, if your property is being used to conduct drug deals, then you’re on notice, that property’s coming down,” said Camden Freeholder Jeffrey Nash.
City officials nailed legal notices to the front of buildings slated for demolition. Eleven sit along Louis Street. Most of the 62 condemned houses in phase one of the demolition project are in the city’s Whitman Park section.
“We’re not done. We are continuing to work. We have started progress and the momentum that cannot be stopped,” Redd said.
Officials say the empty scars will be “greened” and then perhaps possibly turned into community gardens. Ideally, new homes will rise from these empty lots.