Normaly - around here, not sure if it done in a simular way everywhere - the standard practice is to knock several holes in the front and back of the house, then bring in temp steel beams (10X8" or >), then use 6X6"X5' cribbing in a square (stable) configuration, and not even lift the house. (As like in this case there is zero property line clearance and often homes are surface to surface with each other. This one only has an adjacent home on one side, an open park on the other.) It is an extremly stable method and one of common practice. I saw no evidence of this what-so-ever.
Most of these homes have a wooden beam that runs down the middle under one of the bearing walls to the roof. Usually a hall or other partition in the middle. And ing the lower area under the house it is braced with either 45 degree placed lumber as a gusset, or dependant on the sheathing to act as a primitave shear wall. From the appearance of the back, and the way it swung out, away from the other house into the park suggests he may have removed sheathing from the lower rear of the house eliminating what little shear value it had, all the rest of the damage is from the lower area of the house folding like a house of cards.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2007/05/07/COLLAPSE.TMP&o=2FYI there was a whole stack of OSB that has the least amount of shear value to any plywood, and that no one in their right mind (if they knew anything) would use for any structural repair. See pic #6 in this slideshow.
http://www.nbc11.com/slideshow/news/13269746/detail.htmlHe may have also just knocked the foundation out, and relyed on the posts that hold the main beam up to support the house.
Or.... the house was so bad that the house just gave way, not the shoring.... It was apparently that bad off to begin with...
