JIM THORPE, Pa. — The home along Center Avenue in Jim Thorpe has been in Judy Williams' family for as long as she can remember.
But she said her home is now being threatened by the property next door.
Not only is it an eyesore, but Williams said the deteriorating property is a health and safety risk for her family.
"I just want to make sure my children are fine, and I can't enjoy, as I call them, my end days with the borough giving me a hard time with this," she said.
Williams is the owner of half of the double-block home where her son and his family live. She said 204 Center Ave., the adjacent part of the double block, is slated for blight mitigation.
However, the borough told her work can only be done if she provides $55,000.
"It's extremely frustrating. We're sitting in our house, and you can just hear things fall. I don't know if it's the floor or cleaning, sometimes it sounds like somebody's in there. We're out here picking up nails up from the sidewalk and street. So it's basically like we're caretakers for two properties," Tracy Hunsicker of Jim Thorpe said.
The borough received grant money to tear down several condemned buildings, but there isn't enough left to be able to fix up William's home after demolition. Now the family is struggling to find the money.
"I'm hoping the borough can help us out and come up with a solution so that we don't have to pay $55,000 because honestly, I don't feel like we should. It's not my, our problem. This situation with this house, we didn't cause it. We don't own it. We shouldn't have to pay for something that isn't our problem," Hunsicker said.
Carbon County Commissioner Chris Lukasevich has been trying to help the family find a solution, looking for alternative ways to find the money.
"The borough is in a difficult situation. They have listed five projects to potentially be remediated or mitigated with, but they clearly state this is their No. 1 priority, 'let's go ahead and take care of it,'" Lukasevich said.
"I just wanna make things better for them and not have a mortgage payment and a house they can't live in, pay taxes on a house they won't be able to live in, and have these neighbors and people walking up and down here when I know there has to be another way to do this," Williams said.
The homeowner said they received a letter saying they have 30 days to submit a plan to the borough for an alternative, less expensive way to demolish the home if they don't have the money.
Newswatch 16 reached out to Jim Thorpe borough for comment and has not heard back.
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