Run-down to rental, a house at a time
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Kelly Carter and Ben Smith work in the kitchen of their latest home remodeling project on Francisco Street in Sheraden. The couple have renovated five homes in eight years in their neighborhood and now rent the properties.
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Kelly Carter had no idea what she was getting into. She just knew that the apartment building beside her childhood home was in disrepair and that a slumlord had his eye on it.
When it came up for sale in 2001, she grabbed it. She was 29.
"I paid $30,000 and put $30,000 into it," she said. "The person I bought it from told me I would never get quality renters."
Today, she and her partner, Ben Smith, are renovating the fifth house Ms. Carter has bought on Canopolis and Francisco, two parallel streets in Sheraden. She has filled four with tenants she said she has either recruited or found online.
Sheraden has taken its lumps in recent years. Besides the nine arson fires that bedeviled Merwyn Avenue last summer, the neighborhood has watched itself lose more and more control of properties that fall into the hands of individuals who rent carelessly or speculating corporations that buy properties and sit on them.
"What we want is for houses that look haunted to be houses you'd be proud to live beside," Ms. Carter said. "You have to recruit good tenants."
Ms. Carter's philosophy is that, block by block, street by street, neighbors can hold onto or enhance the livability of the entire neighborhood.
"If 50 people each did one [house per neighborhood], it would have a huge impact," she said.
Buying and renovating houses has become her full-time job. She was the owner of Milk Records, a business she opened in 1999 and operated first Downtown and then in the Strip. She now runs the business online and spends most of her days refinishing floors, cleaning walls and talking to electrical contractors.
"Some people have given her a hard time, like, 'why bother, etc. etc,' " said her neighbor, Janine Berard. "But she's a wonderful person with such a great cause, especially for someone in her age bracket to have an interest in preserving a neighborhood."
"There are naysayers," said neighbor John Roell, "but there are naysayers everywhere. Kelly is an asset to the neighborhood."
Ms. Carter said that Sheraden doesn't have the commercial or entertainment draws like some of the other city neighborhoods, so they have to promote the community on its housing stock.
First Published June 30, 2010 12:00 am
