Metro Detroit families and individuals facing difficult financial decisions will get more help from 39 Detroit nonprofits thanks to a $1.1 million award from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation. The foundation celebrated its annual “Detroit Day of Giving” on Nov. 14 by distributing the dollars to the organizations that work to ensure individuals and […]
The City of Detroit has launched community engagement plan that it hopes will results in sustainable actions to improve the quality of life, provide greater economic opportunities, protect public health, and address climate impacts in the city. The City is not going it alone. It is committed to taking input from at least 7,000 Detroiters […]
They say plant a seed and things will start to blossom. That’s exactly what Barb and Joe Matney did in their Warrendale neighborhood. The far west section of Detroit that lies only four blocks from the border of Dearborn has not been the safest place in years past. Abandoned houses on many blocks didn’t help, […]
Jefferson East Executive Director Joshua Elling sits at the helm of an organization that is taking the lead in redevelopment on Detroit’s east side. Many east side Detroit residents know that growth is coming to their neighborhoods. One unbridled advocate of that growth is Jefferson East, Inc., or JEI, an organization not only heavily involved […]
It was the late Eighties, and the neighborhood just to the south of where John George lives in Old Redford was feeling the pinch of the crack epidemic. “We didn’t want to be part of an expanding problem but part of a solution,” he says. It came a little too close to home – literally […]
Groundbreaking work in Detroit’s neighborhoods occurs daily with very little fanfare or recognition. It’s these kind of quiet and consistent efforts moving the needle of neighborhood stabilization and redevelopment that deserve to be in the spotlight. Tonight, Tuesday, Oct. 24, many of the groups pushing the accelerator on neighborhood development efforts will be at the […]
Fixers. The city of Detroit is loaded with them. Ask any city resident to tell you about a person or group that’s changing their neighborhood and you’ll quickly discover that there is a lot more activity going on than makes the headlines. Without much fanfare and, oft times, less than adequate support, these change agents […]
When it comes to rebuilding Detroit, many groups in the Motor City have been happy to dig right in and get things done. A drive down one of the city’s major arteries reveals new shops, restaurants, condominiums and apartment buildings, a visual delight for residents inside the city border and beyond. Parts of Woodward, Livernois, […]
Fifty leaders – ranging from corporate to grass roots residents, foundations to community development professionals, academics to bankers – converged on Baker’s Keyboard Lounge on Thursday, July 27 to mull this question over, all the while feasting on Baker’s trademark “catfish nuggets” and peach cobbler. In a wide-ranging conversation co-moderated by Donna Murray Brown of […]
There are a lot of ideas floating around about how to strengthen Detroit’s neighborhoods beyond downtown and Midtown. Now there’s a newly formed initiative committed to bringing all those ideas together and making them part of an integrated system that will move the neighborhood’s forward. Led by long-time community developer Maggie DeSantis, Building the Engine […]