Block by Block is a solutions journalism series that is supported by CEDAM, Michigan CDFI, and Invest Detroit, and is focused on community development leaders and initiatives in Michigan.
The rising cost of building materials is pressuring minority developers and contractors in Detroit to become more resourceful than ever. Here's how they're responding to the situation.
Michigan is home to around 640 homeless veterans who face multiple barriers to getting assistance. Several federal and grant-funded housing options, available in Detroit, aim to change that statistic: "One thing I can tell to whoever will listen is to always keep hope alive.”
While an influx of higher-wage earners is creating a more prosperous Detroit, it also is leading to a shortage of multi-unit housing across the board, including housing for older adults, according to senior housing preservation leaders. "There is this older population that should be able to live in a revitalized urban community.”
In 2020, four affordable housing developments landed a total of $1.8 million in grants through the Affordable Housing Program, which will result in 318 units throughout the city. Previously, an AHP grant hadn’t been secured in Detroit since 2014: “This comeback and revitalization is for everybody.”
The project will catalyze the economic activity coming to the Bagley/Fitzgerald neighborhood by adding housing and shopping. Behind it is one of Detroit’s foremost art collectors: George N’Namdi. The property will be a work of art as well as a showplace for it.
The Federal Home Loan Bank of Indianapolis may be headquartered in Indiana, but its district includes both Indiana and Michigan, where cities across the region are benefitting from partnerships between the bank and various community-based financial institutions and philanthropic organizations. The bank is making sure that Detroit is no exception.
As more cities find innovative solutions to address the affordable housing crisis, is there a focus on affordable housing in Detroit?
For Sharnita Johnson and her brother Stephen Merriweather, renovating the property their father purchased in Detroit's Hope Village neighborhood is a mission that honors not only his legacy but provides a future for their family’s next generation.
“Black people have been doing development in Detroit for as long as we've been a majority population. But the image is often one of white people doing things to our neighborhoods. I'm trying to flip that narrative by highlighting the work that Black people are actually doing.” -- Chase Cantrell
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