Downtown Hemet
As someone who was born in Hemet at Hemet Hospital. And has lived in Hemet on & off for most of my life, and has a deep love for this valley & its people, when will we stand together & say that enough is enough?
Each time that I have moved away (for college) & subsequently moved back afterwards I have seen Downtown Hemets sad decline.
We used to have businesses in the early 2000’s such as Sharkeys Pizza, Hungry Heart Records, A few different thrift/consignment shops, & don’t forget how the Hemet Theatre used to show movies regularly.
We used to have packed events each week like the Hemet Farmers Market down by the library.
You can see now the many vacant buildings, the stucco falling off of the theatre & the cracks (which is in desperate need of outside repair), the burned out back of multiple buildings leaving rotting wood exposed to natural elements, & the lack of care, love, liveliness & prosperity of many other downtown areas.
I took a walk around downtown recently & these are some of the shocking photos I took of many of our HISTORICAL buildings in severe building code violations, disrepair, fire damage & more.
It’s like there’s zero pride for our town, we look like a joke, & it’s a grotesque display of city mismanagement in my opinion.
Honestly though; it doesn’t matter who is at fault at this point, I’ve heard all of the rumors, I’ve read what public records I can find, attended some city hall meetings.
It just matters that we find a solution.
That we save our historical buildings, revitalize our downtown, repair our buildings before it’s too late, make rent affordable for tenants/prospective tenants, & make Hemet beautiful again.
We can have festivals, different varieties of businesses (will Sorisso’s ever open??!), beautiful buildings.
Hemet can be something of pride. There’s good people in this valley & there is community here.
As someone with a small business I’d love to see more opportunities for growth.
If we can paint a new mural; we can definitely make much more happen.