The Albert

[margdar]

As a recently former resident of Capitol Park, I can tell you that the situation with the displacement of residents of The Griswold is a very upsetting, problematic and poorly managed issue from their perspective and from the perspective of many other community members. The building has been the home base for these seniors and people on disability for years and they consider their neighbors to be family. The pharmacy is around the corner. The bus station is two blocks away. The fruit truck comes by daily [[weather permitting). The Walmart bus would pick them up periodically for shopping runs. A number of other nearby stores provided food and amenities. They and residents of the other senior buildings in the neighborhood would gather daily in the park to talk, have lunch, do tai chi, have aerobics class, play chess, play music, cook-out and play with their grandkids. The idea that this area is some abandoned area, devoid of human activity is totally false propaganda.

Upon learning that they had been given one-year to vacate, residents of The Griswold hired legal help to assist their negotiations. The initial agreement made last summer secured continued occupancy for the 10 most elderly residents [[people in their 90's) as well as housing relocation assistance and moving assistance. Predictably, the way this has played out: Residents were not given any assistance in finding new homes beyond a phone number they could call. As far as moving supplies, they were given boxes and masking tape. Thankfully, movers were provided. The housing voucher process has been long, delayed and provides only $750 for rent. Since the new rent will be upwards of $1150, the 10 most elderly residents now have to leave as well. During the transition, illegal construction in the building while residents are still present created dust, noise and debris debris in the hallways and common areas, causing respiratory issues and other health problems. I know of numerous instances where residents have had to chase out construction workers knowing that they were in violation of housing regulations.

This idea that there is no room for seniors or other low-income residents Downtown is completely enraging. There are dozens of unoccupied buildings Downtown crying out for tenants. Of course I fully understand that it is much cheaper, easier and faster to kick out some poor black people than invest resources where they are actually needed: to rehab not-in-use properties.

That video is an unwatchable attempt to sweep the displacement of seniors and disabled people under the rug. As another example of these lame attempts to look good: https://www.facebook.com/citizensofc...313902/?type=1

"Yea, we should probably throw in some black people on the poster in front of the building where we kicked out all those black people"

[gnome]

The video seems professionally made, so I guess it is ok as an informational piece. I don't think it would really turn-on a media-savvy millennial. It didn't leave me excited, or even curious, but maybe I am not the target.

i'll just sit over in the corner with the other grey-beards and tell stories about being happy to get an orange for Christmas.

[gnome]

If you want a vibrant downtown you need vibrant people. If you want a sleepy downtown you need sleepy people. If you want a broke ass town you need broke ass people.

being broke doesn't make you a bad person, but it does keep you from spending the money you don't have on stuff you don't need.

small shops, cafés and jumping joints of jive thrive on cats with more money than brains. That is what makes Birmingham so appealing. The shops are full of people buying stuff they don't need.

[hybridy]

The shops are full of people buying stuff they don't need.

"what kind of dining set defines me as a person?"

http://toldbydesign.com/wp-content/u...fight-club.m4v

[Spartan]

This idea that there is no room for seniors or other low-income residents Downtown is completely enraging. There are dozens of unoccupied buildings Downtown crying out for tenants. Of course I fully understand that it is much cheaper, easier and faster to kick out some poor black people than invest resources where they are actually needed: to rehab not-in-use properties.

That video is an unwatchable attempt to sweep the displacement of seniors and disabled people under the rug. As another example of these lame attempts to look good: https://www.facebook.com/citizensofc...313902/?type=1

"Yea, we should probably throw in some black people on the poster in front of the building where we kicked out all those black people"

I had some sympathy for you until you brought the racism in. This is about kicking out low-income people and replacing them with higher-income people. Complain about that all you want, and about the other conditions you mentioned. They're not kicking these people out because they're black, they're kicking them out because they can't even afford $400 apartments, in the largest economic center in the state.

[DetroiterOnTheWestCoast]

I'm just curious, how cheap was the rent if they cannot afford $400?

[margdar]

I had some sympathy for you until you brought the racism in. This is about kicking out low-income people and replacing them with higher-income people. Complain about that all you want, and about the other conditions you mentioned. They're not kicking these people out because they're black, they're kicking them out because they can't even afford $400 apartments, in the largest economic center in the state.

I seek not your sympathy but thanks anyway for clarifying the injustices about which I have permission to complain as well as the way in which I may complain.

Those low-income people are mostly black. Those high-income people are mostly white. The poverty rate among blacks is several times that of whites [[http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/). If you care to acknowledge the overlap between economic status/race and the facts of white privilege, then maybe your sympathy could evolve to empathy.

[Danny]

You tell em all, margdar.

[Danny]

Within the next 30 years Downtown Detroit will be running on Dan Gilbert power with little or no minority businesses in site. Old class buildings will be filled with yuppified folks who have a decent careers and lot's of income in the wallets. So subsidized apts. here and there but way out in the burbs. The poor could live there while Detroit's hoods look a urban hybrid of New York City and Chicago.

[corktownyuppie]

You tell em all, margdar.

Rich people displacing poor people is normal -- and necessary -- if Detroit ever wants to have taxpaying citizens again. The fact that said rich people are mostly non-black and that most poor people are mostly black is an issue, but it's not one that has anything to do with the real estate developers and the real estate transaction.

The fact that they were given 12 months to relocate and free moving help is fairly generous. Most people in the apartments at the Lofts on Woodward Row are getting notices that rent will go up with 3 months left on their lease. And they're not getting free movers either.

[[1) If you are renting, your housing is only guaranteed until the lease is up. Bottom line.

[[2) The city needs people who pay taxes in order to not be bankrupt.

[[3) The issues of income and education disparity are serious and need to be addressed, but it has nothing to do with real estate.

[[4) Detroiters have no clue what real gentrification is. SanFran? NYC? DC? Now you're talking. What's going on her is residential displacement. I guaranatee that all of these people could still live in the city if they want to. And I'm all about finding ways to make it humane. But it's necessary if we ever want to not be bankrupt.

[Honky Tonk]

Rich people displacing poor people is normal -- and necessary -- if Detroit ever wants to have taxpaying citizens again. The fact that said rich people are mostly non-black and that most poor people are mostly black is an issue, but it's not one that has anything to do with the real estate developers and the real estate transaction.

The fact that they were given 12 months to relocate and free moving help is fairly generous. Most people in the apartments at the Lofts on Woodward Row are getting notices that rent will go up with 3 months left on their lease. And they're not getting free movers either.

[[1) If you are renting, your housing is only guaranteed until the lease is up. Bottom line.

[[2) The city needs people who pay taxes in order to not be bankrupt.

[[3) The issues of income and education disparity are serious and need to be addressed, but it has nothing to do with real estate.

[[4) Detroiters have no clue what real gentrification is. SanFran? NYC? DC? Now you're talking. What's going on her is residential displacement. I guaranatee that all of these people could still live in the city if they want to. And I'm all about finding ways to make it humane. But it's necessary if we ever want to not be bankrupt.

What B/S. Did you have a liquid lunch, CTY?

[EastsideAl]

B) people who made life choices that did not put control of their later years in their own hands.

It may just be your youth, and maybe you're not aware of it, but you can really come off like a cold-hearted, judgmental, condescending jerk sometimes. How in the world do you know what "life choices" people made, or even what life options were available for them?

You seem completely unaware that a lot of people work hard all of their lives, act right, make decent decisions, and still end up with the short end of the stick. Particularly here in Detroit. Or of the basic American history that many people, obviously through no fault of their own, were born with a skin color that deeply limited their options. Particularly so for people of the age of these seniors.

As for home ownership, this being Detroit I assure that many, if not most, of the seniors in these buildings have been home owners. Certainly the two people I was close with who lived in downtown seniors apartments were. But home ownership, particularly in Detroit, is often not the avenue to solvency and security that your American dreams imagine it to be. In fact, it can be exactly the opposite.

But you just go right on believing in your libertarian fantasy land that all bad circumstances people find themselves in are a result of their bad decisions and lack of personal responsibility [[because, hey, otherwise they'd be well-off like me!). Since it seems somehow to allow you to feel perfectly comfortable with old people who've lived and worked in this city most of their lives being summarily thrown out to an uncertain future, so that they can be replaced with a "better mix" of more "active" younger and much more fashionable [[and rich) people.

[corktownyuppie]

What B/S. Did you have a liquid lunch, CTY?

I'm pretty lucid.

If you have 200 homeless people in a shelter that could be converted to upscale condos commanding $100,000 per year in income tax and another 50,000 per year in property tax, then do the math. We need to move the rich people in and move the poor people out....if we ever wanna add the 500 police officers we want.

I'm not saying it that it needs to be cruel. I'm well in favor of finding another place to relocate the shelter, helping communicate it well in advance, and making the transition as seamless as possible.

But while everyone is saying that it's heartless to cut people's pensions and they're saying that it's heartless to increase tax revenue and they're saying that it's heartless to not have enough police....

It's all part of the same problem. Sh** costs money.

Like I said...I don't want the transition to be any more painful than it needs to be. But it needs to happen.

[Spartan]

I seek not your sympathy but thanks anyway for clarifying the injustices about which I have permission to complain as well as the way in which I may complain.

Those low-income people are mostly black. Those high-income people are mostly white. The poverty rate among blacks is several times that of whites [[http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/). If you care to acknowledge the overlap between economic status/race and the facts of white privilege, then maybe your sympathy could evolve to empathy.

I don't deny the economic status/race correlation, I just find it offensive that you seem to assume a causal effect in this case. I do feel bad for those that don't have as much, and I sympathize with the fact that blacks typically have much less opportunity and struggle to migrate away from that correlation.

I'm just tired of white people being the big bad wolf in Detroit just because they generally have more money. These people aren't being displaced because they're black, it is because they're poor. It's that simple. If they were rich black people, they would be free to stay if they chose to.

[EastsideAl]

I'm pretty lucid.

If you have 200 homeless people in a shelter

Don't confuse things by exaggeration. This wasn't a homeless shelter. It was a section 8 seniors building for rent-paying tenants. Many of whom were retirees from full-time employment and veterans. These people are not trouble-makers, or detrimental to the neighborhood [[except, it now seems, in an economic and aesthetic sense). In fact, until all those pale yuppies suddenly decided they HAD to live downtown, these folks were the neighborhood.

This building was rehabbed with federal money as a seniors' residence when the offices there were no longer economically viable, and when no one else wanted to live downtown. But this program wasn't forced on anybody. The owners of the building made money on the deal, and on the subsequent subsidized rents, that's why they signed up for it.

But now that there's even bigger money to be made from little cell-like apartments, hasta la vista oldies. Here's some packing tape, and an underfunded voucher, bye!

[Honky Tonk]

I'm pretty lucid.

If you have 200 homeless people in a shelter that could be converted to upscale condos commanding $100,000 per year in income tax and another 50,000 per year in property tax, then do the math. We need to move the rich people in and move the poor people out....if we ever wanna add the 500 police officers we want.

I'm not saying it that it needs to be cruel. I'm well in favor of finding another place to relocate the shelter, helping communicate it well in advance, and making the transition as seamless as possible.

But while everyone is saying that it's heartless to cut people's pensions and they're saying that it's heartless to increase tax revenue and they're saying that it's heartless to not have enough police....

It's all part of the same problem. Sh** costs money.

Like I said...I don't want the transition to be any more painful than it needs to be. But it needs to happen.

If we're going to add the police officers to Midtown, like we're adding the "mass transit magic choo-choo", @ the expense of tossing elderly out on the street, because some fat chick wants to look @ buildings out the window while sitting on her herringbone floor, then maybe some rethought is in order.

[Wesley Mouch]

A block from here is St Al's. I've attended service there and it is chock-full of old folks. DMC has a clinic in Compuware and there are still lots of larger medical services at the Medical Center and Henry Ford, a short cab ride away. St. Al's operates a community center that provides a clinic too.

I think its a great area for seniors. But I'd rather have the market figure that out than self-appointed know-it-all bureaucrats.

[jaytheory]

royal oak 2, yuck, ill be selling and leaving if that happens. if people wanted to live in royal oak wouldnt they just live in royal oak?

[Hypestyles]

sigh.. so how much are these units? I suspect even working-class college grads like me can't remotely afford these.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

It may just be your youth, and maybe you're not aware of it, but you can really come off like a cold-hearted, judgmental, condescending jerk sometimes..

I'm not particularly young. That's my personality. I do try to be cold-hearted in analyzing facts; emotions never fixed anything [[although they have led to a lot of spending!). And I am judgmental, as everyone is. I just don't usually feel the need to pretend I'm not. As for condescending, well, you wouldn't understand...

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

But you just go right on believing in your libertarian fantasy land that all bad circumstances people find themselves in are a result of their bad decisions and lack of personal responsibility [[because, hey, otherwise they'd be well-off like me!). Since it seems somehow to allow you to feel perfectly comfortable with old people who've lived and worked in this city most of their lives being summarily thrown out to an uncertain future, so that they can be replaced with a "better mix" of more "active" younger and much more fashionable [[and rich) people.

The points I made in my initial post in this thread are valid, your perceiving them as mean notwithstanding. I made several points, among them: when people don't plan for and provide for their own future [[reasons are not relevant at that point), they leave their circumstances in old age to others. I don't think it ever made sense for seniors to be housed in and around downtown in general, Capitol Park in particular. When it was "affordable" it was entirely unsafe and lacking amenities; now that it safer and growing, it is too expensive to house them there. As I also said in my post, fortunately no one has been rendered homeless. They may not have wanted to move, but when others are making the arrangements, that wasn't their choice to make. Also, it is entirely appropriate when reviving an urban neighborhood to consider what kind of residents are likely to patronize the businesses that are trying to get underway. Detroit wants downtown residents and workers who shop and dine out. That isn't the limited-income senior crowd. There is no moralizing there, just acknowledging reality. Seniors are free to buy and rent downtown like anyone else. If they are footing the bill. If someone else is paying all or part of the bill, well, that someone else has a say in the matter. And for the record, I have a number of relatives in the 75+ bracket, 2 of whom live in Detroit, and I assist in their care. My mother, as well, although not quite there yet, is in active preparations for her later life financial, housing, and health needs. I am more than familiar with planning and caring for elderly people. Which is one reason why it is glaringly apparent that Capitol Park was never a good choice. It might have been a good choice for the buildings, so they never became vacant, but it wasn't good planning or care for the residents.

[corktownyuppie]

royal oak 2, yuck, ill be selling and leaving if that happens. if people wanted to live in royal oak wouldnt they just live in royal oak?

Downtown isn't going to be Royal Oak 2. But parts of it might look like Royal Oak 2.

Detroit needs more money. That means they need more people....specifically people who have money. The people who have money want to live in the nicest parts of the city. If I'm living in a 4,000 sq ft penthouse in the nicest part of the city on my income alone, that's a problem because those need to go to the people who make 2-3x as much as me in order to have a healthy tax base.

Now I agree that there need to be affordable housing options for the poor and middle class. I'm totally in favor of that. And I'm also ok with the idea that if public money is used to develop property, then it's totally legit to mandate affordable housing requirements with that money.

And I'm also ok with the idea that if you are displacing 200 low income residents, you be required to develop an affordable housing replacement option.

But that's not the beef I'm hearing here. People don't like that the demographic composition of the city is changing. I have no patience for that.

Of course the composition needs to change. We are trying to grow the city by adding people from outside. I don't care if they're white, black, Bangladeshi, Polish, Arab, or whatever. They just need to have money, because that's what the city needs.

[Honky Tonk]

You know what might work, CTY? What if we round up the poor, the elderly, the homeless, and "make" a "special" section for them? Maybe far Northwest, say, Rouge Park? You know, like a "camp"? You could keep them all there, and the $1200 Shit/Shinola watch wearing Yupsters could collect canned goods and blankets in a charity drive @ one of the new Chuck-E-Bars? To even suggest that, let's say 5K, "new residents" within a 5 square mile radius could support a 140 square mile City is ridiculous. But then I'm sure these "new residents" advocate shutting off any City services anywhere beyond their 5 square miles that doesn't concern them. "What Me Worry?"

[corktownyuppie]

You know what might work, CTY? What if we round up the poor, the elderly, the homeless, and "make" a "special" section for them? Maybe far Northwest, say, Rouge Park? You know, like a "camp"? You could keep them all there, and the $1200 Shit/Shinola watch wearing Yupsters could collect canned goods and blankets in a charity drive @ one of the new Chuck-E-Bars? To even suggest that, let's say 5K, "new residents" within a 5 square mile radius could support a 140 square mile City is ridiculous. But then I'm sure these "new residents" advocate shutting off any City services anywhere beyond their 5 square miles that doesn't concern them. "What Me Worry?"

As angry as that might make you, at least it ends up putting money in the city coffers.

Look, I'm not trying to get rid of poor people or shuttle them off to some walled off district where I don't have to see them. They are good people, and they are an asset to the city.

Like I said, I'm ok with low income housing and I'm ok with developers being required to have affordable housing requirements.

I'm also ok with the fact that renters will have to move as people with money move in. That's one of the reasons why I stopped renting and I bought. There was same article about one of our posters in the Freep about moving out of the Kales building and buying a place in Corktown because rents are rising. Some of the renters in Corktown are starting to fill up vacancies west of the train station because rents are rising. This is rejuvenating a strip that was all but abandoned.

This is what it looks like when things are getting better.

The question is how can we ease the transition, especially for the most powerless and marginalized. And that's a debate that's totally worth having.

[MikeyinBrooklyn]

Like I said, I'm ok with low income housing and I'm ok with developers being required to have affordable housing requirements.

Yuppie, I agree with most of your post. But I hate affordable housing requirements, as well as rent-control and stabilization laws. The laws intended to help make housing "affordable" actually are subject to very much fraud and abuse [[try finding a poor person in a NYC rent-controlled apartment, I dare you), and in the long run deplete housing stock, which causes there to be fewer, and thus more expensive housing. In NYC, there was a bump in housing built right after WW2, and then the control/stabilization and Mitchell-Lana aparment laws went into affect. New York went almost 40 years without building housing, except for public housing projects and luxury apartments and condos. Why? The city legislated the profit out of building for ordinary incomes.

Affordable housing laws make their proponents feel good. But they fight against market conditions and ultimately lose. I think it would be better policy to just give the truly poor a house [[along with mandated home maintenance training) than to try to manage the business affairs of private developers with "affordable" housing schemes. It is like mandating that all restaurants serve 20% of their meals to those who either can't pay or pay full price. There would be fewer restaurants, and the prices would be higher at those that did stay open.