The town of Jonesboro is trying to fight the blight as part of their town beautification project. They are doing this by using an interesting method of setting dilapidated houses ablaze.
Leslie Thompson, the mayor of Jonesboro, gave insight into how they chose this method. “There are a lot of houses that are dilapidated and that needed to be demolished or burned, and we were trying to figure out some kind of way to address this issue. So what we did was enter into a collaborative agreement with the fire department to burn them down.
Brandon Brown, the town compliance officer, happens to also be the fire chief, so the plan was able to work perfectly for the town. “When I see one that’s dilapidated, we give the homeowners the choice. Hey, you can fix it back up, get it restored to get into compliance with the town, or we can come in and burn it.”