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http://www.freep.com/story/news/loca...icts/96504210/
I sympathize with both sides.
Taylor is doing work 99 percent of the world would spit on.
But that neighborhood has taken it on the ass, and no one really wants to live by that.
Of course he did turn an abandoned school into a legitimate business and I don't see entrepreneurs beating down the doors to develop at Dexter-Davison.
I agree, both sides make a good point. These types of programs are an absolute necessity, but NIMBY is going to be the prevailing reaction. Obviously in hindsight, but I have to question by Taylor would have chosen and invested so much into that location when the operation was dependent on a conditional zoning exemption? The neighborhood seemed opposed to it from the start, so he had to have known that that resistance wasn't going to go away once the waves of recovering addicts started showing up.
from the article -
"Former University of Michigan football star William [[Billy) Taylor Jr. has barreled through life, blow after blow.
The former All-America running back was once a drug addict, alcoholic, lived homeless on the streets of Detroit and even did prison time before getting his life back together.
But at 68, the blows keep coming. The latest comes from a Detroit neighborhood association that has helped evict Taylor’s drug rehab center from a historic community.
For almost a decade, Taylor has been in a legal feud with the Russell Woods Sullivan Area Association over his drug and alcohol rehab center called Get Back Up. The center on Dexter Avenue was shut down last August after the neighborhood association successfully argued against it, claiming it was a nuisance, a threat to safety, scared potential new home buyers away and that it hurt the neighborhood’s historic image.
Hogwash, said the comeback kid, who is pushing back with some new legal ammunition: a lawsuit that claims the city is discriminating against disabled people — in this case, recovering drug addicts and alcoholics.
After six years of helping addicts get their lives back together out of an old brick school in Detroit, Taylor filed a federal lawsuit on Jan. 10, alleging the city and zoning officials are discriminating against addicts by catering to stereotypes about them and denying them a place to get better.
Drug addicts and alcoholics are disabled people who need help, not an eviction notice, argues Taylor, claiming zoning officials caved to public pressure by residents who used a “not in my back yard” campaign to deny him the permit he needed to keep going".
the rest of the article is worth a read, if you have time...