Patricia Shipman was watching television in her brown La-Z-Boy in the early morning of Nov. 6 when she heard a knockat the door.
A woman, whom Shipman did not know, told hertherewere 30- to 40-foot flames coming from the empty house next door on Halcyon Road in Charlestown, Indiana. She urged Shipman to get out of her homeimmediately.
"I was scared my house would burn down. The flames were coming over onto my roof," said Shipman, 73, who needs a walker to get around her Pleasant Ridge home. "It was horrible. I just knew my house was gonna burn."
The woman and a police officer helped Shipman into a cruiser and down the street, where she stayed in the car and prayed. Firefighters stopped the blaze about 45 minutes later.
Shipman's house survived.
"It was the first time in my life I felt terrorized," she said about a month later, adding that she had seen "squatters" going in and out of her neighbor's home despite it being vacant for years.
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Pleasant Ridge residents said the fire and the potential for squatters are examples of the problems associated with vacant homes in the low-income neighborhood,another chapter in its fight with the city over the area's proposed redevelopment.
But city officials saythese aren't new problemsand that crime is actually down in the neighborhood over the last 1 1/2 years.
"The accusation that they're increasing crime? They're not — it's just not happening," Charlestown Mayor Bob Hall told Courier Journal after a council meeting this month.
John Hampton, manager of Pleasant Ridge Redevelopment, which has been buying properties in the neighborhood, said on Saturday thathe understood residents' concerns but added "that's not something that we've created."
"The vacant homes have been targets for squatters for years – well before we were there," he said.
Charlestown Fire Assistant Chief Andre Heal said vacant homes do pose a fire riskbut thatthe Nov. 6 fire was the only recent structure fire in Pleasant Ridge.
He said neighbors told the fire departmentthere may have been squatters in the housebut that the investigation is considered closed.
"It was pretty much gone by the time we got there," said Heal, who was one of the firefighters at the scene. "It would have been difficult to investigate."
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A request from residents
The Pleasant Ridge Neighborhood Association sued the city this year, alleging it was scheming with Pleasant Ridge Development LLC to help it acquireproperties. The city has denied any wrongdoing.
In early December, Scott County Judge Jason Mount granted an injunction requestmade by the residents, ruling that if the city waives fines for properties owned by Pleasant Ridge Redevelopment LLC, "then it must waive fines imposed on other property owners" in the neighborhood, according to court records.
Judge Mount —who was specially appointed to hear the case — wrote that it is "irrational to allow these structures to continue to stand indefinitely on a promise that they will be leveled, when allowing them to remain standing and at the same time seeking no code enforcement against them creates health and safety problems."
At a crowded Charlestown City Council meeting the same day as the ruling, Melissa Crawford read that excerpt during her address to the counciland asked the board to send a letter to Pleasant Ridge Redevelopment owner John Neace,asking him to tear down the homes.
Crawford said a mid-October survey found that 125 of the neighborhood's 350 parcels neighborhood are vacant.
"We know that there are people living in the abandoned homes and, with cold weather approaching, they will keep warm by whatever means necessary," said Crawford, the vice president of the Pleasant Ridge Neighborhood Association. "Our fear is fire. We fear for our lives, the lives of our neighbors and our homes."
Councilwoman Tina Barnes, a Pleasant Ridge resident, had already made a motion to send the letter, but the motionfailed after it did not receive a second, setting off a spat between Barnes and the other council members.
"I agree that they're empty," Mayor Hall said during a more than 15-minute talk about the issue. "I don't agree that we're having more crime because of it."
He then assured the crowd of roughly 50 people that "things will be different one year from now. It will be improved." He acknowledgedthat more than 100 families had left the neighborhoodbut saidthey had all found new places to live.
Hampton said Saturday that the redevelopment company received state permits to demolish its homes in the neighborhood beforethe court made its decision. He said the company will begin demolishing homesin January.
He said the redevelopment companyowns 174 properties — some are vacant, two have been taken down and 26 are currently occupied.The plan is to take down up to four homes a week.
"That's our plan," Hamptonsaid. "It's been our plan all along."
Concern in the neighborhood
Crawford, 60, lives on Clark Road in Pleasant Ridge and is two houses away from a duplex on Hampton Courtthathas been vacant for six months. The light green, one-story home is boarded up, and its back door is swung open.
"I would sleep better at night if I could board the door and shut it," she said, adding that she hasn't seen any squatters, but it would be easy to get in because the wooden boards are loose.
"It's just endless what could happen. ... It's a mess," saidDale Crawford, 76, Melissa's father-in-law, who lives in the house in between with his wife, who uses a walker.
Melissa Crawford said she's skeptical that the homes are going to start coming down in Januarybut added that"if it happens, it's gonna make our neighborhood look better and our neighborhood safer."
"We've heard this before. It just has never happened," she said. "I hope they will begin taking them down when they say it."
On a frigid December day, she made the half-mile trek to Shipman's residence. The women, who did not know each other prior to the redevelopment agreement, hugged and embraced and recalled the day of the fire.
Shipman then puton a red jacket and with the help of a caretaker, adjusted her back brace and pushed her blue walker down awooden accessibility ramp to the sidewalk in front of the home next door, which still reeked of fire.
There's only one room left of the house, only about 15 feet from Shipman's home.She seesthe remnants of the fire every day through her blinds while watering a plant next to a window.
"I'll never forget it," said Shipman, who has lived in the neighborhood since 1952, and in the home for four years. "I'll never ever forget it."
Justin Sayers: 502-582-4252;jsayers@gannett.com; Twitter: @_JustinSayers. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today:www.courier-journal.com/justins.
