Cody Rouge Neighborhood Featured in Detroit 2020 Special

Our Carolyn Clifford and Stephen Clark will be reporting live from the Cody Rouge neighborhood this evening as we present a special Detroit 2020 event.

The Cody Rouge neighborhood is on the far west side of Detroit.  Bordered by the Jeffries Freeway on the north, Southfield expressway on the east, Ford Road on the south and Rouge Park on the west, it is home to 36,000 residents

Kenyetta Campbell is one of them, “I’ve lived in the Cody Rouge community all my life, since 1973 and I’ve also graduated from Cody high school in 1991.”

But things have changed over the years.  Nearly 22% of the homes are vacant.  That means 3600 houses sit without families…and in many cases without futures.

“Blight is definitely an issue in the Cody Rouge community,” according to Kenyetta who is now Executive Director of the Cody Rouge Community Alliance.  And busting blight is a top priority.  She says, “We look at safety and blight as being something that co-exists, (edit) there are several vacant homes that are in the neighborhood that needed to be boarded up.  Doors are wide open around the schools as well as around some of the community centers.”

The Cody Rouge youth council got involved and conducted a windshield survey of blight in the community.

They basically were able to go block by block to identify issues whether the houses were vacant, those that were boarded up or if there was a lot of illegal dumping.

There has been progress in the neighborhood, like a site on the Southfield service drive where a dangerous abandoned apartment building once stood.

Kenyetta told us, “I think it was very encouraging but it seems as though our voices have been heard by the mayor of the city.”

One burned out house on Penrod near West Chicago is among dozens that have been a problem in the Cody Rouge neighborhood.  Tonight that will change.  Join us at 7pm for a special Detroit 2020 event.  The house will be torn down live.  We’ll show you the history of the house.  And we’ll name the names of the people who are the biggest blight offenders according to the city of Detroit.