Hendry Street gets makeover
Rehabs nearly done; troubled street transformed
Tony Lee
Once a disturbing reminder of the foreclosure crisis and all of its effects, Hendry Street in Dorchester is now on the mend.
City officials marked the rehabilitation of two triple-deckers yesterday on this maligned dead-end that once saw over a dozen troubled properties and a heavy dose of crime.
Two more properties on Hendry Street will be fixed up by midsummer and the city’s Foreclosure Intervention Team — which helped secure the properties from banks before selling them to a developer — is expanding its mission into other areas hard-hit by foreclosures, most notably Dacia and Woodbine streets in Roxbury.
The renovation at Woodbine Street is being featured on PBS’s “This Old House,” which was on Hendry Street yesterday to help highlight efforts to turn around such neighborhoods.
“It’s important to find homes that are worthy of being saved and I think we’ve done that in Boston,” said show host Kevin O’Connor.
Just under 1,000 foreclosed homes currently exist in the city. Mayor Thomas Menino formed FIT last year and has received roughly $8 million in state and federal assistance that will be used as it was on Hendry Street, where the properties were bought directly from lenders and rehabbed by Bilt-Rite Construction.
Bilt-Rite co-owner John Sullivan said an open house for the two three-unit homes on Hendry will be scheduled soon. Under Menino’s new guidelines, eligible buyers could get up to $25,000 in buying assistance.
