Ugliest-home contest focuses on city eyesores

By Deborah Hirsch • Courier-Post Staff • July 29, 2009

CAMDEN — Call it an anti-beauty contest.

St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Cramer Hill is asking residents to vote for the neighborhood's ugliest home.

Earlier this month, Father Jud Weiksnar and staff from Camden Churches Organized for People photographed 13 of the most notorious eyesores in the neighborhood, all believed to be abandoned. They pasted the full-page prints on the doorway to the church with signs asking parishioners to cast their vote inside. Ballots were also distributed to other churches and the Cramer Hill Community Development Corp.

"It was just a tongue-in-cheek thing to try and get the city to start doing something with these abandoned homes," said Brother Jerry Hudson, of St. Anthony's.

That's been a perennial issue for the impoverished city. Stephen Singer, executive director of CAMConnect, estimated that the city has between 4,000 and 8,000 abandoned homes.

(For the complete article, please see the Courier Post.)