miracle on lombard st

boo and i came home after school yesterday to find that the drug house two doors down has been boarded up.

turns out that the nonprofit land trust that owns the land under the house was able to evict the homeowner (who would have been in foreclosure on her mortgage anyway) on the grounds that illegal activities at the property violated her agreement with the trust. i talked to the exec director of the trust, who was apologetic that the process took so long - they had been working with their legal team for five months to make this happen.

well, it was faster than multiple calls to the police.

the activities in the house were worse than we had suspected. based on a conversation with a neighborhood (but alas, not my neighborhood) cop, we thought it was pot - all the activity was at night, nobody around during the day, people seemed to be carrying baggies. lo and behold, it was crack and prostitution.

last night was the first night in many, many months with no driveup traffic on our street. even the amount of driveby traffic seemed to be less. "honey, look at the nothing!" i exclaimed to my husband.

the land trust will buy the house back from the mortgage company, renovate it, and resell it over the summer.

it's a huge, huge relief to us, and we are incredibly grateful to the portland community land trust for doing this. best holiday present we could have received.