‘Nothing easy’

Krewson and her staff are cautiously optimistic about what’s been done and what’s to come. But from one resident’s perspective, seeing a couple of buildings demolished feels like a drop in the bucket.

Shadiah Thomas last year told the Post-Dispatch she was tired of kicking syringes out of the way when she took her kids outside to play.

She described hearing gunfire often, seeing drug usage right outside of her front door and being broken into twice in one year.

“It’s not safe over there, especially when you have children,” Thomas said of their rental property in the 3900 block of Labadie Avenue. She and her five children moved out at the end of May, and are now staying with family while she searches for housing in a better neighborhood.

The city demolished two of the 11 vacant buildings — or “vacos” as Thomas and her former neighbors refer to them — on her former block on Labadie Avenue last fall, according to the city’s vacancy portal.