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GREENSBORO — The intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and Julian Street boasts a fine selection of some of the city's most beautiful houses.

Unfortunately, residents say, it also boasts a fine selection of prostitutes and illegal narcotics.

And if nothing changes, some of those fine homes will meet the wrecking ball soon.

That scene was among several upside-down moments Wednesday during the Greensboro Housing Coalition's annual bus tour of both desperately bad and carefully reclaimed housing.

Nettie Coad, a longtime resident of the Ole Asheboro neighborhood along Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, said two houses near the intersection are to be demolished if repairs are not made soon. One even had lead paint issues resolved, she said, but is back in poor shape.

"We really would like to save it," she said. "It's a beautiful house."

The neighborhood doesn't want to see the houses replaced by empty lots, but the abandoned homes are trouble magnets.

"They go in there and use it for a bathroom, whatever," Coad said. "We've been struggling a long time."

Nearby, the bus stopped at a house on Douglas Street. Resident Matt Franklin said the house has been repeatedly boarded up, then broken into. It now has a distinct aroma, he said, of urine and feces.

The tour, which involved dozens of people riding in two buses, wasn't all grim.

It included places such as a house on Sevier Street, where lead paint has been taken care of in a home where a 3-year-old girl lives.

In front of a newly renovated house off East Washington Street, Beth McKee-Huger, head of the housing coalition, presented an award to Irene Agapion-Palamaris, whose family owns numerous low-income housing units in the city.

Last year, the Agapion family owned more housing units with code violations than any other landlord in the city.

That's still the case this year — but that number has been cut by more than half, from 63 to 31.

Agapion-Palamaris said the family decided in recent years to step up its efforts.

McKee-Huger said the housing tour has changed since it began earlier in the decade.

The first year, participants walked in houses with roaches and rats and mold, she said. But the housing situation is getting better.

Much of the benefit, she said, stems from an ordinance that requires housing units to have certificates showing they meet certain standards before they can be rented.

"Each year, there have been more and more positive things to show," McKee-Huger said.

Contact Jason Hardin at 373-7021 or at jhardin@news-record.com