Neighborhood Intervention Program funding comes to Salisbury

The city of Salisbury will be reaping the benefits of state grant money awarded by Governor Larry Hogan’s office. They’ve received $50,000 for their neighborhood intervention program.

The city buys dilapidated houses and demolishes them through the program. This has been in effect in the city for years. Officials say it helps encourage existing residents to improve their properties.

Deborah Stam, the community development director for the city of Salisbury says, “The whole broken windows theory if dilapidated properties are in existence in a neighborhood, then people are not as likely to expend funds increasing the value of their property by doing improvements.”

Over the last ten years, the city of Salisbury has spent $200,000 in community block grant funding to do acquisition and demolition projects, often hand in hand with groups like Habitat for Humanity.