NEWSDAY
By Denise M. Bonilla
LONG ISLAND, N.Y. — More than a dozen Long Island municipalities are asking the state for $2.7 million in grant money to help fight vacant foreclosed homes that fall into disrepair.
Out of the 100 municipalities in the state invited to apply for the $13 million in grants, 21 are on Long Island, the most of any region in the state.
The money is being made available by state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman to local communities to use toward “zombie” homes — those houses that have gone into foreclosure and been abandoned by their owners. Such houses often become dangerous eyesores attracting garbage, rodents and squatters.
A report last year by Newsday and News 12 Long Island found that Long Island led the state and ranked among the top 10 regions in the nation for the number of zombie houses, with thousands of dilapidated homes from Levittown to the Hamptons. Newsday’s yearlong analysis found that local municipalities in 2014 spent more than $3.2 million to maintain vacant houses.
The grant money comes from a multibillion-dollar settlement with Morgan Stanley that Schneiderman helped negotiate this year. Among the criteria for eligibility, communities must have at least 5,000 residents and at least 100 vacant and abandoned properties.
Municipalities were given a limit as to how much they could ask for, and to receive the money they must promise to connect at-risk homeowners to services so they can avoid foreclosure. The application process is being handled by Local Initiatives Support Corporation, a national nonprofit that used U.S. Postal Service vacancy data to determine which communities would be invited to apply for the money.