Neighbors pleased with youth group's efforts at fighting blight in Jeannette

For years, Paul and Paula Hassinger were met with blight the moment they took a step outside their West Jeannette front door.

Now, the abandoned houses across 12th Street looks much better after a Murrysville church group ripped out some overgrown weeds and brush last month, but the Hassingers still hope the eyesores will completely be removed.

“It’s a lot better,” Paul Hassinger said Tuesday. “I hope it comes (down) sooner than later.”

Thirty area middle-schoolers with Cornerstone Ministries made a difference in West Jeannette on a week-long “Mission Home” cleanup project targeting a playground, field house and the abandoned properties. Their work helped fire Chief Bill Frye get inside one of the homes that had been inaccessible because of weeds and brush that grew two stories high. That home has been condemned and secured, Frye said.

The next step will be to find funding for demolition and take down the four houses on three properties.

City officials praised the group’s work during a council meeting Tuesday.

“They did a beautiful job,” said Mayor Curtis Antoniak.

The city helped with equipment used to remove the brush and Paul Hassinger said the church youth group worked at a nearby abandoned church, too. They power-washed playground equipment at West Jeannette Playground and cleaned and painted Jeannette Midget Football’s Russ Wiley Memorial Field House.

Paula Hassinger got the ball rolling on the 12th Street project after bringing attention to the problem, her husband said. It’s been an eyesore for the couple and others on the tidy, well-maintained street for three to four years.

“When we get one of them things torn down, we’ll really be happy,” he said.