Detroit officials announce $203 million plan to stabilize housing for city residents

[Lowell]

A long time refrain on this forum regarding development in Detroit had been, "What about the neighborhoods?" This extensive article in today's Free Press details some of that effort.

This is a boring read next to sensational downtown projects but if you read down further it addresses many pressing needs for affordable ownership and rental and such things as bringing properties up to code. ["University of Michigan's Poverty Solutions initiative found that about 6% of Detroit's approximately 87,000 rental properties had a certificate of compliance, as of March 15"]

https://freep-mi.newsmemory.com?publ...af7717_1348556



Snip from article...
Detroit City Council members joined Mayor Mike Duggan and nonprofit leaders to introduce the plan, which includes a range of programs, from renovating Detroit Land Bank Authority properties to offering down payment assistance to 600 Detroiters.

“We built a lot of affordable housing, we've converted a lot of vacant land bank homes, we've preserved every affordable unit we have, but there is no question, affordable housing is a more urgent issue than it has been in this city in many decades,” Duggan said during a news conference in front of a city-owned building in the Dexter-Linwood neighborhood.

The building, which has been vacant for about a decade, is slated to become subsidized housing as part of the plan.
Many of the programs are backed by federal pandemic recovery aid the city received last year. The funding for the plan is through this year, Duggan said.

“There's going to have to be at least $500 million of public money over the next three years and a lot of private money to go with it,” he said.

[DetroitSoldier]

I love everything about this plan. I hope it sees early success and can be expanded with additional investments following from the private sector.

The danger with these types of plans though is that they have early success but funds are not replenished and the developments stop shortly after.

[oladub]

Dividing the $203M by Detroit's population, works out to about a $1,200 cost for the average family of four in Detroit. I hope that spending does something besides line pockets.

[renf]

It appears to me that there has been some progress in revitalization in the last half decade in many Detroit neighborhood quite far from the Woodward corridor. This new endeavor may encourage that positive development.

However, there is a fundamental problem in this nation that is also
occurring in metropolitan Detroit. Those at the top of the income and
wealth distribution are seeing their share of income and wealth steadily increase while the share of income and wealth held by those in the
lower one-third of the income distribution steadily declines.

[Rocket]

.................... found that about 6% of Detroit's approximately 87,000 rental properties had a certificate of compliance, as of March 15"

Many reasons for that.,

One being that the City shut down the entire City County Building and all the departments in it for most of the last 2 years. [While I believe paying the employees full pay for not working].

The entire BSEED, the Business License Division etc is housed there. They didn't even answer the phone for almost 2 years. We just got a recording that they were shut down until further notice.

Fire, Vice and Health & Sanitary are external, but Building, Elec, Plumb, Mech etc are all in there [on the 4th floor], as is the Bus Lisc Dept [on the first].


Next, it is VERY hard to get a Cert of Compliance in Detroit, even in normal times. ALL your inspections [as many as 8] have to be good standing simultaneously.

And many of the divisions are so poorly managed that they don't complete inspections, or simply don't/won't send your compliance into the Bus Lisc dept.

Some can take 9 months to a year to complete, by which time many of your other inspections have lapsed. So you must start the entire process over.

In GOOD times, a business may be able to get a Cert of Compliance every 2nd year. And you have have that, AND be in good standing with all your taxes, AND be mailed a bus lic fee, AND pay it before you can get your a Business License. [we haven't even been mailed the bill since 2019].

So you'll find that 8 out of 10 of Detroit businesses do not have a current business license.


Another reason for this is that the license goes from a certain date each year, say March1 to Feb 28. But it may take the owner from Oct 2020 to August 2021 to get all the various inspectors to complete their jobs. Often it takes dozens of phone calls over many months to sweet talk the inspector into completing the job they were paid to do 6 months prior. [And inspectors usually only answer the phone between 7 and 8 am]. So by the time the business owner receives their bus license in Oct 21, it only is valid for another 4 months, which means it's already 6 months past time to start on the next round of inspections.

I had inspectors stop by to look at my licenses just before covid hit, and the guys said we were the only ones in our industry to have a valid license that they had seen all month.

[Cincinnati_Kid]

Well, it's good to see the city working with the residents to repair their homes and keeping them from getting foreclosed on. A lot of cities would just let you sink in quicksand.

[Satiricalivory]

There is plenty of development and activity in the neighborhoods these days. So that complaint is outdated.

But now we have NIMBYS in these neighborhoods attacking new housing development and screaming bloody murder about "gentrification". There is no winning it seems.

[southen]

There is plenty of development and activity in the neighborhoods these days. So that complaint is outdated.

But now we have NIMBYS in these neighborhoods attacking new housing development and screaming bloody murder about "gentrification". There is no winning it seems.

Which neighborhood do you reside in?

[Chicago48]

There are wonderful and long-time historical co-operatives in Detroit. Most in the Lafayette Park section and there's Fountain Court Coops. I don't understand why the government doesn't promote more co-ops. I live in one, my relatives lived in one. it's "almost" like owning an apartment or townhouse.
Lookup Ralph Bunche Co-operatives in Detroit.
It's IMO the best way to "almost" own and you have stable neighborhoods.