This beautiful historic property once belonged to my grandparents. They restored the home inside and out and made it a home. They got sick and got sent to hospice. They were in hospice for months upon months and at the end of it we owed the nursing home over $250,000. We had to sell the home. The people who bought the property bought it under false pretenses and said they were gonna restore the property. At the end of the day they were actually buying it to demolish the home to build “luxury apartments”.. my grandfather would be rolling in his grave if he saw what they are doing to his home. These people said it was an abandoned house for over 30 years when we just sold it to them in 2017 and have been living in it up until that point. It was left to rot and eventually caught fire and blamed on squatters. 

The Residents and people of Bethlehem are sick of city council allowing our city’s historic buildings and places of extreme historic importance to all Bethlehem citizens to be demolished and forgotten to be made into expensive unaffordable housing. They use their power to go around what is wanted by all citizens and when will this end? Historic Main Street? Maybe even our historically designated properties? Anyone living in historic Bethlehem don’t want this eyesore outside their windows anytime they wake up in the morning just wanting to see there lovely town of Bethlehem. 

If things continue in this direction all the things that make Bethlehem “Bethlehem” will be lost. All these apartment buildings bring is the raise of taxes and property value that normal people cannot afford. The homeless problem in Bethlehem is getting out of control and is not caused by immigrants or mental illness it is caused by people not being able to afford the cost of living driving up by these mostly empty apartments being built by big business. 

If we do not act now to stop the problem at its source things will forever change in Bethlehem for the worst and everyone who felt safe in their homes will not be able to afford to live in them soon enough. Our elderly will be forced into homes and forced to sell there property to pay for there care to these companies just trying to tear them down. We will end up the next downtown Allentown with outstanding crime and no way to stop it.