Philadelphia residents living beside long-vacant rowhouses face growing safety risks as deteriorating structures collapse, invite pests and damage occupied homes, while the city’s system for tracking these properties falters. The Department of Licenses and Inspections no longer relies on its once-touted vacancy-prediction tool and instead depends on resident complaints and an incomplete license list. An Inquirer analysis found that most imminently dangerous buildings are also likely vacant and disproportionately located in the city’s poorest, predominantly Black neighborhoods. Community groups and affected families describe years of unanswered 311 requests, shifting and unreliable vacancy data, and slow enforcement that leaves them living next to collapsing porches, invasive trees and cracked foundations. L&I says it is doing what it can with limited staff, but activists argue the city’s response remains too slow and too weak.
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer; 12/8/2025