Detroit Works Project Gets to Work

With the temperature in the teens, we found Davette Bradley shoveling her front walk.  It’s her effort to keep her eastside Detroit neighborhood safe and well tended.  But on Flanders Street snow is the least of the problems.

From her front walk, Davette looks across the street at three burned out houses decaying between vacant lots.   The street has steadily deteriorated in the three years since she moved in.

This neighborhood, near Gratiot and Connor, is just one example of the challenge facing city leaders and the Detroit Works team.

Kurt Metzger, director of Data Driven Detroit told us, “There’s a lot of deteriorating housing because of high levels of foreclosure which have left vacancies.  Buildings become vacant and immediately somebody comes in and strips them or there is arson or something else and you start to see buildings that start to deteriorate which kind of spreads if you don’t intercede right away.”

Data Driven Detroit worked with U of M students to survey every parcel of land in the city of Detroit.  They counted the number of vacant lots, single family homes, and and one-to four family units.   In all they looked at 343,000 properties.

Metzger says, “ We came up with over 90,000 vacant parcels of land and we pretty much came up with 13,000 to 15,000 structures that we felt needed to be demolished. “

Even though there aren’t many people in some areas, the garbage still has to be picked up; utilities still have to be maintained and the mail carrier needs a truck to get from one occupied house to the next. That’s the challenge.

In September, Detroit Mayor Dave Bing announced a 12 to 18 month process to come up with solutions.  Citizens were invited to town hall meetings – which sometimes became heated.  A new round of meetings begins Thursday, January 27.

Last night, the Detroit Works task force reviewed information that will be presented at those meetings…including population shifts beginning in the 1960s

According to Alice Thompson, co-chair of Detroit Works, “We were a vibrant city with lots of people living here, very dense areas and we have a lot of pockets now that are not so dense, very few folks living there, lots of vacant land, vacant homes and we’ve got to figure out, with the people’s input how we’re going to now use that land.”

Resident Davette Bradley has some thoughts on the issue, “Knock my house down and find me somewhere else. That would be good.”

But just a few blocks away, Gladys Crumsey isn’t so eager to move – even though her street is far from ideal.  “I’m the only house from here to the corner here and it’s only about 5 or 6 of us on this block.”

But her house is well-maintained and comfortable – exactly what she wanted.  “I bought this house for $1,750 in 1989.  It had no doors, no windows, no sinks, had holes in the wall. My husband passed in 2007 and we did this, we refurbished it.”

The empty fields actually make her feel safer…“I always tell my kids with a little humor – rabbits don’t carry guns, so I have a lot of rabbits here, pheasants, and possums, open air to see night skies and do astronomy, so I’m safe outside.”

Different ideas, different concerns and the same opportunity to be part of the solution.

Alice Thompson says this is not just a city problem, it’s a city challenge, it’s a county and a state challenge and probably a federal government challenge.  She says, “Be engaged in the process, let your voice be heard, begin to have an input into the whole process. We cannot have anybody sitting on the sidelines just watching the process, they must be engaged in the process.”

If this issue is important to you, you can attend one of the upcoming Detroit Works public meetings scheduled Jan 27 – Feb 16 to make your voice heard. Click here for a complete list of upcoming Detroit Works meetings