When the abandoned rowhouse next door collapses

Thomas Jackson was wearing a headset, immersed in a video game one stormy night in early April when he heard a crash. The 29-year-old was afraid his mother had fallen down the stairs, but Sherrilyn Jackson had slept through the noise and only woke up to his panicked shouts.

They didn’t see anything out of place in their Sharswood rowhouse, so they assumed Thomas had heard a particularly loud crack of thunder. He returned to his game.

It wasn’t until the next morning when he stepped into the backyard that he saw what had happened: the back of the abandoned rowhouse next door had partially collapsed. Bricks, glass, and wood had burst free from the plaster, crashed through a chain-link fence, and spilled into the Jacksons’ yard.

From the street, the home still looked like its brick rowhouse neighbors on either side, but the back was left open like a dollhouse. Thomas Jackson could see kitchen cabinets and appliances. On the second floor, which sagged on collapsed beams, a television sat perched on top of a pile of belongings at the edge, where the wall used to be.

The Jacksons’ home of almost four decades, where Sherrilyn and her late husband raised their four children, escaped unscathed. And no one got hurt.

“Thank God,” she said.

Vincent Fang, staff attorney at Community Legal Services of Philadelphia, said the legal aid nonprofit often helps homeowners who have problems with neighboring lots, including ones that inconvenience or endanger residents.

“We for sure have clients who have had vacant properties be a nightmare for them,” he said.

An inspector for Philadelphia’s Department of Licenses and Inspections came out that day — April 2 — and declared the house “imminently dangerous” of collapse. Two weeks later, L&I taped a notice of demolition to the front door.

And over the last couple of weeks, the Jacksons lived in a shaking house as a contractor tore down the neighboring one. Now, all that’s left is a hole in the row of homes and some leftover debris.

“Just knowing this could have been worse brings me a little bit of gratitude,” Thomas Jackson said.

The abandoned rowhouse had been a source of concern for the Jacksons for years. Two years ago, they submitted a complaint to the city through 311 to report maintenance issues.

The Jacksons began to worry about the structural stability of the house when they saw large cracks and loose bricks.

They filed another complaint, and an L&I inspector declared the house unsafe on Dec. 2.

But the collapse was a surprise.

In the days that followed, Sherrilyn Jackson, who has lupus and asthma, found herself coughing more.

Weeks later, debris was still strewed between the neighboring homes and belongings perched where the wall once was. The back of a closet blew down from the second floor and landed on top of the brick pile. Jackets and shirts swung on hangers in the wind.

“How do you expect people to live in this kind of situation?” Sherrilyn Jackson said. “It’s just terrible.”

The Jacksons estimate it had been at least eight years since anyone lived in the now demolished rowhouse on North 25th Street.

And for two decades, the property has been racking up unpaid taxes, according to city records. The owner now owes the city about $29,000 in real estate taxes for the property, which has an assessed value of $241,600.

Homes may become vacant for a variety of reasons. Owners get sick, and their homes sit frozen in time. Ownership of homes can become unclear after owners’ deaths, and properties often remain empty while survivors try to sort out tangled titles. Vacant properties languish waiting for sheriff sales. Owners walk away when they can‘t afford property taxes or home loans.

And owners who aren’t able to keep up with home maintenance can find themselves forced out when problems escalate. Homes in poor condition are more likely to collapse or be demolished.

Fortunately, the partial collapse of the house next to the Jacksons’ did not damage the family’s home. But while doing laundry in the basement earlier this month, Sherrilyn Jackson found a crack in her foundation.

“It wasn’t there when they first started tearing down the house,” she said.

The interconnected nature of the city’s rowhouses means Philadelphians have reason to be concerned about major work happening next door.

A 2023 Inquirer analysis of city data found that more than 50 occupied rowhouses are declared unsafe each year because of neighboring demolition, excavation, or construction. Owners have lost their homes or live in fear that their homes will one day collapse on top of them.

“I want to be here to see what they’re going to be doing,” Sherrilyn Jackson said a couple weeks after the collapse and before the demolition. “If they don’t do it right, it’s going to compromise my house.”

At the end of April, a contractor came out to start demolition.

The Jacksons said someone at L&I had advised them to take photos of their home beforehand, so they could prove damage afterward if need be.

“Document, document, document,” Fang, at Community Legal Services, said he tells clients. He works with the Rowhouse Protection Project, a program that offers legal support to low-income owners whose homes have been or could be damaged by adjacent demolition or construction.

He also works with clients living next to construction sites that contractors have abandoned. These homes “can very, very quickly deteriorate” if they’re not properly protected, he said. Clients have been left with leaky roofs, inaccessible sidewalks, and moldy walls. “This actually happens a lot more often than we hope,” he said.

“If we’re heading toward a recession, we may see more projects be abandoned,” Fang said. “And longtime residents will be the ones who end up having to deal with that.”

Traditionally, Philadelphia has been a city where households with low and moderate incomes can become homeowners. The city’s housing stock is also old. That combination means homeowners often struggle to afford home maintenance.

Across the Philadelphia metropolitan area, completing all the home repairs needed would cost billions of dollars, according to a report the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia published in 2023.

The need for repairs far outpaces the resources available to help the homeowners who struggle to afford them, such as Restore, Repair, Renew, which offers low-interest loans; the Basic Systems Repair Program, which completes certain emergency work for free; and Pennsylvania‘s Whole-Home Repairs Program, which has not received new funding since it was created in 2022.

Homeowners who apply for help linger on waiting lists and properties deteriorate. Sometimes, owners just aren‘t able to repair their homes.

Jill Roberts, vice president of advocacy at the financial counseling nonprofit Clarifi, where homeowners go for help through Restore, Repair, Renew, said she wishes owners whose homes are too far gone had more options.

“It’s easier and cheaper to just leave. Pack up their stuff and go away,” Roberts said.

Neighbors are left to try to deal with the aftermath.

“It is about having the capacity and the knowledge to say, ‘There’s a vacant house next to me that is going to destroy my house. What do I do? How do I protect myself?’” Roberts said.

The city needs a comprehensive process in place for residents in that kind of situation, she said, “and there really isn’t one.”