This story is part of a series that highlights the challenges and solutions around housing in Detroit and is made possible through underwriting support from the Detroit (Region O) Regional Housing Partnership and the McGregor Fund.
Detroit is in the midst of a
housing crisis that's brought falling homeownership rates, growing cost burden for renters, and challenges addressing the needs of
people experiencing homelessness. Solving the crisis is a massive challenge – and it requires a broad range of innovative solutions, according to Bre Williamson, president of the board of the
North Corktown Neighborhood Association (NCNA).
"It's just a difficult situation to be in because there's so much that needs to be done," Williamson says. "There can't just be one approach to it. That creates an unstable economic fabric in a neighborhood, and it doesn't lend to a really diverse socioeconomic community."
In North Corktown, NCNA and the
Gilbert Family Foundation are implementing an unconventional housing model to test one of many possible solutions to Detroit's housing woes. Last fall, the organizations held a
public showcase for seven new manufactured homes in North Corktown that will be part of a community land trust (CLT). CLTs are nonprofits that maintain long-term ownership of the land on which homes are built. Residents of those homes buy and own only the physical structures while paying a small lease fee to the CLT for the land. The goal of a CLT is to reduce housing costs for residents while still allowing them to become homeowners.
"Our organization specifically wanted to look at getting access to homeownership for individuals who maybe grew up in the neighborhood but could no longer afford to live here due to the significant income disparity with the median home sale prices," Williamson says.
The North Corktown CLT is just one example of some of the ingenious solutions Detroiters are devising to confront the city's housing crisis. We checked in with three organizations that are rethinking how to develop and expand access to housing.
Clairmount Center: Permanent supportive housing for LGBTQ+ youth
At the time of the Ruth Ellis Clairmount Center's opening in Detroit's Piety Hill neighborhood in 2022, the Detroit News described the project as "
one of the first of its kind in the Midwest." The facility for LGBTQ+ youth who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness offers 43 permanent supportive housing units, meaning that numerous services are available to residents in addition to apartment units. Residents can access physical and behavioral health care, a community kitchen, clothing, food, a community kitchen, and events in a community center. Residents may live at the center as long as they wish, so long as their annual income doesn't exceed $19,000.
"If we're doing our jobs right and supporting young people and achieving their goals based on their own individual plan, then at some point in time, they're going to be ready and prepared to earn incomes that far exceed that $19,000," says Mark Erwin, executive director of the nonprofit
Ruth Ellis Center, which manages the Clairmount Center.
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Steve KossMark Erwin.
The Clairmount Center represents the fruition of a 25-year-old vision. Ruth Ellis Center founders outlined a plan for the facility in one of their first meetings in 1999. Erwin says that plan was inspired by a 15-year-old boy whose family had thrown him out after he came out to them.
"At that time, there were no resources for LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness in the city of Detroit, let alone support services," Erwin says. "And so it was our founders who really brainstormed different ideas in which they would be able to support these young people, because they knew that if there was one young person experiencing this, there were others."
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Steve KossThe Clairmount Center.
It took two decades for the Ruth Ellis Center to build capacity to the point of being able to realize the founders' vision, and to assemble the necessary funding and partnerships. (Erwin gives particular credit to the McGregor Fund, which funded an initial feasibility study for the project, and developer Full Circle Communities.) The project broke ground in 2020.
"The incredible joy was just an extraordinary feeling for all of us, because we felt like we had done something really special and we had achieved something that the founders had only been able to dream of," Erwin says.
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Steve KossA mural in the Clairmount Center lobby.
Erwin estimates that eight to 10 residents per year move on from the Clairmount Center, but the facility is "always at capacity." While he believes there's need in Detroit for additional similar facilities, he says the Ruth Ellis Center isn't looking to undertake a project of similar magnitude any time soon. But he hopes the center may serve as a model for others to do similar work in Detroit and beyond. He sees the Clairmount Center as part of a "period of transformation" that involves rethinking the concept of reducing the number of people experiencing homelessness.
"It can't just be about a number. It has to be about a person," Erwin says. "And if we are not intentional about ensuring that we're aligning individuals with programs and services that meet their needs, then we're not going to be as effective as we possibly can in terms of reducing the number of individuals who experience chronic homelessness."
Detroit Land Bank Authority adopts new strategy for next five years
Since its establishment in 2008, the
Detroit Land Bank Authority (DLBA) has been a major force in Detroit's real estate landscape, holding, selling, and facilitating the redevelopment of thousands of properties. But as DLBA looks ahead with its forthcoming 2025-2030 master plan, dubbed the "Next Five," it's adopting many new strategies to respond to major changes in the city's housing market. The land bank's inventory of vacant lots has almost always outpaced its inventory of structures, but its number of structures has fallen precipitously, from over 30,000 in the late 2010s to under 6,000 currently. Meanwhile, DLBA's vacant lots number over 60,000. Rob Linn, director of planning and analysis at DLBA, says the land bank is looking to an era in which reactivating abandoned homes is no longer "the centerpiece of [DLBA's] work."
"We're really excited about a future where we're really paying a lot of attention to activating our vacant land in new and exciting ways, and that includes working with CLTs, infill housing, greening, and all sorts of maintenance strategies," he says.
One of the 10 main goals in DLBA's Next Five is to "Bolster quality, attainable housing options." Its strategies for doing so focus heavily on better setting DLBA's buyers up for success. The land bank has been criticized for
allowing already neglected homes to deteriorate further, and it is exempt from state rules on seller disclosures. Goals in the Next Five include better matching buyers' qualifications to properties, increasing DLBA's pre-sale investment in its properties, and providing clearer information about properties to buyers up front.
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Ariel FlaggsAriel Flaggs.
"We're in no way unaware of the challenges that folks have had over time, whether it's trying to understand how the city operates, how [DLBA operates], or how we operate together," says Ariel Flaggs, strategic project program manager at DLBA. "So we're really going to put forth a lot of effort in trying to streamline a lot of those processes so that we can get folks where they want to be, whether it's the right programs or the right type of housing opportunity."
Another goal in the Next Five is to "Define and build meaningful, formal partnerships with neighborhood and community organizations." Linn says that's an outgrowth of the process of developing the Next Five, which engaged several nonprofit representatives on an advisory board. He says DLBA wants to maintain those relationships beyond the Next Five planning process and "do everything we can to help them expand their work and ... further their missions," which frequently align closely with DLBA's goals.
Linn says "it's probably not too hard to tie almost everything in the [Next Five] plan to affordable housing."
"I feel like our mission statement is really about supporting the city's neighborhoods, and one of the most effective tools for that is the creation of safe, affordable, accessible housing," he says.
Community land trusts grow in Detroit
Back in North Corktown, Williamson sees a CLT as a way to reclaim land that has long been under DLBA stewardship and return it to community ownership.
"It will hopefully get many of the longstanding neighbors and their family members back into the community," she says.
She also hopes the CLT will help "build up a base of residents" large enough to attract businesses that North Corktown doesn't currently have, "so that residents can actually benefit ... and stay in the neighborhood for services," instead of going to other neighborhoods or suburbs. She notes that the North Corktown CLT is not the only one underway in Detroit. NCNA is
one of five nonprofits currently working with the
Detroit Justice Center to establish their own CLTs.
"I would be hopeful that all of them are successful in their endeavors, but I think it really depends on the mix of the neighborhood, what neighbors want, what's in their best interest, and how much land there is," Williamson says.
She's pragmatic about CLTs' potential for addressing Detroit's housing crisis, asserting that they "shouldn't be the only solution being deployed." She notes that while there are many successful examples of CLTs, some – including
one in Detroit – have struggled. Williamson adds that the entire country is "obviously in a housing shortage" that is unlikely to be solved by a single silver bullet.
"I'd like to see us focus on a broad range of solutions in our neighborhoods as a means to maintaining permanent affordability, getting people into home ownership who maybe historically have been excluded, and rebuilding the fabric of our communities," she says.
Patrick Dunn is the managing editor of Concentrate and a freelance writer and editor. He lives in Ypsilanti.
Clairmount Center photos by Steve Koss. All other photos courtesy of the subjects.