LAFAYETTE, La. — Howard Flugence grew up in the McComb-Veazey Coterie.
"I was born and raised in this neighborhood in 1947," said Flugence, a Northside resident.
He has spent much of his adult life in the same area, watching as properties that once housed entire families sat vacant.
"These properties...been empty for decades," Flugence said. "The property was never taken care of or no one ever came and lived on it. It's just been empty for years, and I never could figure out why."
There are many blighted properties throughout the city of Lafayette. According to Lafayette Habitat for Humanity's Community Development Director, Tina Shelvin-Bingham, the city has a total of about 1,400 properties that are currently adjudicated or tax delinquent.
This is an especially present issue within the Northside coteries.
"Within the coterie boundaries, I think there's more than 100. I think we have the second-highest number of adjudicated properties for any of the coterie areas in Lafayette," said James Proctor, the La Place Coterie chairperson.
A few neighbors, including Proctor, are coming together to learn how to fight this issue.
"The Lafayette Habitat for Humanity applied for a grant for the Community Revitalization Fellowship through Community Progress. It's a grant that equips six fellows from the community to be—take a deep dive into learning about how to activate vacant and blighted properties in our community and just giving them some of those leadership skills that will help them speak into that process a little bit better," Shelvin-Bingham said.
The group will visit Memphis, Tennessee and Rochester, New York to learn from other community revitalization leaders.
"It's always beneficial to take a trip to actually get on the ground and see what's going on, face-to-face, on the ground with the people that are working those situations to get the unique perspective that they have and the lessons that they've learned that are unique to their place or unique to their situation and then derive from that what can be applied here," Proctor said.
Some revitalization efforts have already taken place, like with Legacy Park in the McComb-Veazey Coterie, but soon, more could be on their way.
"It is going to make the community even look better and feel better. It's going to be nice," Flugence said.
