BALTIMORE — After witnessing first responders pull a man from a vacant house on North Avenue, A local pastor is demanding a more aggressive response from the city to address vacant properties.
Lining the 1800 block of North Avenue, you see shells of empty homes now neighbors to each other sharing features like broken windows, boarded up doorways and for some of the houses a clear view of the sky from inside.
On Thursday, Reverend Keith Bailey got clear view of the horrors inside.
"She came and identified her father and she was terrified because that's her father, thats a loved one," said Bailey. "He was behind the door when they pushed the door open."
Bailey says it was an overwhelming second calling witnessing the anguish the family experienced that afternoon.
"I have seen this happen so much in this neighborhood until it terrifies me. But I've never had a family look up at me like they did as a representative, as the president of Fulton Heights to say 'why don't you do something about these properties?' Bailey recalled.
With cooler temperatures making their way into charm city he calls Thursday's discovery a wakeup call for an already vulnerable community in Baltimore.
"They're trying to keep warm. They got candles and this is what happens. The city needs to do something about that. Not just this house, other houses on Fulton Avenue, bodies have been found in the houses," said Bailey.
He's proposing what he views as a solution for the city which is demolition.
"I think the city should first of all either tear them down or rebuild them, but first, find a place. It's getting ready to get cold, Find a place for the homeless to go to keep warm," Bailey said.
As for the individual pulled from that home, police haven't identified who he was or his official cause of death.
The demolition solution, while it sounds practical for neighborhoods with blocks of blight, could be a costly decision.
It costs about $25,000 to demolish a vacant home and the city has about 14,800 of them at last check totaling a price tag of demolition of about $370,000,000.
