How to fill empty homes in Carpentersville

Helping homeowners avoid foreclosure may be beyond the scope of the village board, but candidates for Carpentersville village president say village leaders can play a role in filling the glut of empty houses.

Incumbent Bill Sarto and his two challengers - Jim Krenz and Trustee Ed Ritter - offer different plans for occupying the almost 800 foreclosed homes in the village, a number that is expected to rise.

During a recent editorial board interview with the Daily Herald, the three candidates said maintaining vacant homes, working with organizations to fix up run down properties and improving the village's image are key to overcoming the housing crisis.

Krenz, a local business owner, says the village needs a program such as Neighborhood Housing Services dedicated to its residents. The Chicago and Fox Valley-based programs provide affordable resources to help people buy, maintain and keep their homes.

"It will take a lot of work to get the village and business owners to work together," Krenz said. "But the affordable housing and the job market in the village could make an NHS program viable in Carpentersville."

Similarly, Ritter said the village needs to find a way to buy and rehabilitate houses to prevent neighborhoods from falling into disrepair.

"It could be a program made up of public and private business owners that we foster and help individuals fix up these houses," Ritter said. "We need to stop neighborhoods from looking bad and instead keep up the neighborhood pride."

But Sarto, who is seeking his second term at the helm, said the village must repair its tarnished reputation- particularly among the Hispanic population - to encourage potential homebuyers to move into the village.

"There seems to be an overriding belief that Carpentersville is not a welcoming place because of all of the illegal immigration talk," Sarto said. "We have to turn that around and be seen as a community that is welcoming. We have shrunken that market and turned them away."