A boarded up substandard house on Spring Street in Jamestown. Substandard housing is one issue the city’s Development Department is trying to battle in the city. P-J photo by Dennis Phillips

Blighted and run-down. Slums and squalor. These are just some of the words used to describe the substandard housing that can be found throughout the city of Jamestown.

In fact, Vince DeJoy, city development director, said there is too much substandard housing in the city.

“Many of these units were houses that have been chopped into multi-unit apartment buildings. In many cases, it was an old house that wasn’t in great condition to begin with,” DeJoy said. “That seems to be where we get most of the calls from tenants. Landlords are not responding to issues and now (the tenant is) living in substandard housing. The people who live in them feel there is no way out, and they cannot get a response from their landlord.”

According to a community survey by the U.S. Census Bureau, in 2013 there were 185 houses in the city with inadequate plumbing, compared to 53 houses in 2007.

In 2007, there were no housing units in the city that didn’t have a kitchen.

A housing unit is considered to have inadequate plumbing if it doesn’t have a toilet that flushes or a bathtub or shower with hot and cold running water. A housing unit is considered to have no kitchen if it doesn’t have a sink with a faucet, a refrigerator, a stove or a range.

The U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t keep statistics on housing units that have both inadequate plumbing and no kitchen.

DeJoy said he doesn’t believe there needs to be more laws or policies to improve housing conditions in the city. He said the only way to battle the blighted housing conditions is through vigorous code enforcement.

“Unfortunately it is a long process by the time we get the complaint to the time we can follow up on and give an appearance ticket for court to the time their is a court date. Sometimes there is no court date available for two to three weeks,” he said.

DeJoy said if the landlord doesn’t address the compliant, there isn’t much city officials can do to get the housing issue resolved.

“We can ticket them all that we want, but if they don’t show up to court and if they don’t comply, there isn’t too much we can do,” he said. “Of course, there are financial problems for not complying, but that doesn’t mean fixing the (housing) issue.”

DeJoy said code enforcement officers and the city’s housing court have a strong relationship when trying to battle slum housing conditions. He said in extreme cases, a judge can order an emergency clean up of a property, but that is a rare circumstance.

“We have to rely on the judicial system to help us with code enforcement, and we do have a strong relationship with the courts, but the due process takes longer than we would like,” he said.

To contact the city Development Department, call 483-7542. People can also visit the city’s website — jamestownny.net — to report properties that are vacant and abandoned or have housing code violations by using the MyGov complaint page by going to the development/housing link under departments.