Help is coming to North Philadelphia’s Sharswood neighborhood after NBC10 started looking into problems with several homes falling apart there.
Neighbors to the dilapidated and vacant homes told NBC10 they have been concerned about the four rowhomes at 24th and Turner for a long time.
All of the homes are owned by the Philadelphia Housing Authority.
Licenses and Inspections officials came out on Tuesday night to put up caution tape around the homes after NBC10 got involved.
Neighbors say they want this fixed before someone gets hurt.
“It’s horrible. I don’t want to live here no more,” said Dorothy Jordan.
People living on the 2400 block of Turner Street have been dealing with broken windows, broken boards and fallen bricks from the façade of homes every day.
“They’re falling down,” Jordan said. “Rats and everything coming in people’s houses. Everywhere. It’s just really crazy.”
Cierra Howard, another neighbor, said the fire department has previously put up caution tape, but squatters came and took it down.
“The fire department came out and put caution tape up, and then the squatters took it down to go into the house,” Howard said.
Overall, neighbors say little has been done to fix the problem.
Howard said she has been trying to reach out for more than a year.
“We’ve called, we’ve emailed, we’ve done everything that we can do, and nobody wants to do anything,” said Howard.
Bu that all changed when NBC10 investigated the issue this week.
We found that L&I have two active violations issued for one of the properties.
The first is for not properly displaying the address in front of the house, and the other for not having a vacant structure license.
NBC10 had an independent structural engineer review a picture of the homes and they believe the situation is dangerous based off the image of the brick façade falling apart.
After making calls to PHA and L&I for answers, a neighbor got video of the fallen bricks being cleaned up Tuesday morning.
And Tuesday night, L&I inspectors came out to inspect the properties.
Neighbors told NBC10 it’s taken too long to get to this point.
“It’s very frustrating,” Howard said. “As a mom of six, it’s very frustrating. And with at least 35 children in this block, it’s frustrating.
The Philadelphia Housing Authority sent NBC10 a statement about the issue saying in part:
“PHA aims to be a good neighbor and always values the importance of ensuring safety across all our communities. It is disheartening that our new neighbors choose to publicize matters rather than communicating directly with PHA and giving us an opportunity to address the situation.”
PHA said they never received any notices from L&I about any unsafe conditions regarding the properties.
And, L&I said inspectors initially followed up on a 311 call about one of the homes and did not see any issues on Sept. 26, 2025.
But the building façade fell two homes over and was never documented.
Neighbors tell NBC10 they feel unheard as they look for help.
“No body cares. No body care about us,” Howard said. “So, I stopped calling the city. I stopped sending the emails.”
The Philadelphia Housing Authority said in a statement that these properties will be repurposed and redeveloped as homeownership units.
They say that’s part of their revitalization of Sharswood.
The L&I inspectors tell me they need to get permission from PHA to enter the property to do a more thorough inspection, which will likely be Wednesday.
Johnny Archer
Source link