The US Department of Housing & Urban Development [[HUD) has awarded Detroit an $8.9 million grant to demolish blighted homes and use vacant lots to control storm water, reduce flooding and beautify our neighborhoods.
This grant is in addition to the City’s annual funding and comes from the HUD Community Development Block Grant [[CDBG) Sanction Fund, which is comprised of funds recaptured from cities that failed to spend their annual allocation.

This is the first time the city has been eligible for additional funding. Historically, Detroit’s been in jeopardy of losing millions of dollars every year based on the City’s inability to manage its federal funds.
In the past two years, the City has significantly improved its management and usage of these funds, to the point where HUD has awarded Detroit the largest-ever allocation from the CDBG Sanction Fund.
This grant comes almost exactly a year after a 100 year flood devastated homes and businesses throughout the City of Detroit.

On August 11, 2014, a series of storms rolled through Metro Detroit, dumping more rain in a single day than the City has experienced in 89 years. Nearly 66,000 Detroit homes flooded and many basements were destroyed. FEMA spent more than $100 million helping Detroit residents and small business owners recover from their devastating loss. Many others simply didn’t qualify for assistance.

As weather patterns change, rain events like this could become more common. That’s why it critical for Detroit to find alternative ways to manage storm water to protect our homes, businesses and neighborhoods.
Thanks to HUD, Detroit is moving one step closer towards that goal.
Using this special allocation, the City will spend $8.9 million on green projects that will both improve the appearance of our neighborhoods and keep more storm water out of our sewers and our basements.
The projects will be concentrated in 5 neighborhoods:
Aviation Sub & Islandview
• Demolish approximately 115 residential and commercial properties
• Beautify up to 200 existing vacant lots with landscaping that can manage storm water
• Direct storm water into bio-retention basins that will hold rainwater and help reduce flooding
Brightmoor, McDougall-Hunt, Mt. Elliott
• Install trees and landscaping on vacant lots
• Work with DWSD to design large storm water retention projects that could be built in other Detroit neighborhoods.
Work is scheduled to begin before the end of this year.

http://www.detroitmi.gov/News/Articl...the-Next-Storm