SPOKANE, Wash.– If you have driven by the intersection of Maple and Maxwell in the last year, you may have seen crowds of people, trash, and maybe even drug use.
Four homes at the corner of the street had become a hot spot for illegal activity.
Right now, it is still littered with trash and needles, but it is a much quieter scene than just months ago.
Carol Kendall and her family have lived on this block for 11 years and said they had never seen the area swarmed with drugs and crime like this.
“It’s just been a nightmare. We’ve had break-ins in houses on this block, my car has been broken into, tires have been slashed,” said Kendall. “My grandkids are afraid to walk through the neighborhood. I have teenage kids who can’t even walk from here to grandma’s house a half a block away.”
From the outside, these homes were ones Chad Young and his team at The EZ Homebuyer were used to encountering.
“We buy all sorts of houses, but for the people who don’t want to put 80 to $100,000 into fixing up a house, maybe evicting squatters, those are types of situations we handle on a regular basis,” said Young.
At the beginning of 2024, they purchased the four properties on the lot, but he said he couldn’t have predicted the road in front of them.
“It has taken us about 11 months to get the 60-plus people we had to evict out of the houses. You probably saw it was like a mini-Camp Hope for a while,” said Young. “From when we bought it to what they did to the houses, it probably caused another $100,000 in damages that we couldn’t have predicted.”
Young took us inside one of the homes, and while all the contents had been cleared out, a strong smell still lingered.
Young said they hauled out mountains of trash and needles away from the properties.
“Any situation that they move into after this house is better than this house was. I don’t care what the situation they are going into after this. It is far better and safer for everyone involved if it is not this,” said Young.
Young said just getting these homes empty, cleared out, and sealed was a much bigger and more expensive task than anticipated.
“Once we evicted people, they just kept trying to break back in. We had to hire a security company because they were tearing apart the foundation and stone trying to live under the houses,” said Young.
The eviction process was a long and complicated one.
Something that has left neighbors like Carol frustrated.
“I didn’t think that those people cared enough to take care of it because I have made so many phone calls to them. I just gave up,” said Kendall.
According to Spokane Code Enforcement, in 2024, multiple cases were submitted by neighbors about poor living conditions and unlawful camping on the properties, but Young said they were doing all they could.
“We had neighbors and police that were so angry that people were still living in this condition, but we have done everything the courts would allow us to do. It wouldn’t matter how many times people would call the police for the excessive drug use, the violence, until people were actually evicted from the home, we couldn’t do anything. Our hands were totally tied,” said Young.
Despite her frustration, Carol says she has noticed a difference in the area lately and hopes things improve.
“My hope is that the people who live here can live in peace and that my grandchildren can walk to 7-11 worrying about being harassed or stepping on a needle,” said Kendall.
As for the future of the four properties, Young said they want to turn them into homes families can live in again.
“We are gonna turn them into a nice house again, which is nice. It’s safe. It’s gonna clean it up for the neighborhood.” said Young.
Young said homes of this size usually take 2-3 months to flip, but these ones took closer to a 9-month timeline.
The EZ Homebuyer predicts it will lose around $40,000 from the four properties but will be able to offset the loss in other ways.
Young said while taking a loss is not ideal, he is glad they are able to bring them back up to living conditions.
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