“Operation Clean Sweep” An anti-blight initiative a success.

City of Warren’s “Operation Clean Sweep” – an anti-blight initiative, a success.

Jim Fouts, Mayor of Michigan’s third-largest city, implemented a program to improve Warren’s community improvement initiative known as “Clean Sweep”.

At the heart of the neighborhood improvement and safety initiative is a task force of representatives from city departments, including police, public service, building, property maintenance, sanitation and communications was quickly established to organize and manage a neighborhood-by-neighborhood, street-by-street, house-by-house, weeklong sweep of targeted neighborhoods.

The well-organized program that included a mass media communications campaign planned by the city communications department  informed the residents of Warren of this new initiative to improve their neighborhoods.

Residents and businesses in the affected communities participated in the initiative to reduce blight and improve their communities.

To date, the house-to-house and business-to-business inspections and cleanup initiatives in older neighborhoods has produced stellar results.

A drastic reduction of junk, debris, containers and inoperable vehicles from the neighborhood streets. 

Site securitization of vacant buildings for health and safety reasons, the cost of which was borne by the building owners.

An astounding 95 percent compliance with follow-up inspections.  

A dramatic increase in revenues associated with building permits compared with the same month the previous year. This was directly attributable to owners of the posted houses applying for permits to bring their properties up to building code.

Operation: Clean Sweep making a difference.

Building community pride takes time and effort, and having cleaner and safer neighborhoods has been a cornerstone of this administration as demonstrated by the residents of older

 

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