Low Income Housing - Creating an pool of donations from property owners to maintain neighborhood, any advice.

[Wendy Lavana]

Last year I purchased two fourplexes in a low income housing neighborhood in Ft Lauderdale. Three years prior to my purchase I lived no more than 3 blocks from the area I recently purchased in and while I was there I considered it to be a decent area. I see now how 3 blocks make a big difference. Anyhow, I'm having a hard time keeping my buildings looking nice, my tenants are dirty and erratic with their payments and movements. I want at a least 50%of them out, but that means I need to find new, better tenants and yesterday as I drove around the neighborhood I realized that it looked simply deplorable. High grass, trash everywhere, toilets and mattresses left on the curb or even worse my property. There are people lying on indoor furniture that is being used as outdoor furniture outside of their buildings. The sit there all day long. 

This morning I was tossing and turning in bed, wondering what I could do to get better tenants, some properties next to mine have been acquired by decent landlords and this I can tell because they have made small but good improvements. So I thought I might go to the neighborhood meeting this week and meet the neighbors, I imagine that I will meet most of the people that lived where I lived before which was an area that is mostly owner occupied and better kept. But I was considering the idea of reaching out to the landlords in the area and bouncing around the idea of creating a fund. A fund that those interested could donate to, so that we could pay individuals to cut the grass in the common areas around the homes that has been left unattended and to pick up the garbage on a regular basis around the neighborhood. Has anyone every tried anything like this? I'm wondering what are the advantages and disadvantages of trying to pool money to keep the area looking nice and clean. Would other landlords find that this might help them raise their rents and keep better tenants. The neighborhood is close to downtown and the beaches, I believe it has potential to be better.