Mayor Mike Duggan joined with residents from neighborhoods around the city to launch a new program to board up 11,000 blighted abandoned houses in the city over the next two years. The program started in the Boynton neighborhood of Southwest Detroit, where 40 houses have been boarded in recent days.
The securing of the empty – and in many cases structurally sound – houses is part of a larger citywide initiative to demolish, rehab or board up the estimated 25,000 blighted abandoned houses that exist in the city over the next two years. The goal is to secure the houses in hopes of preserving many of them for rehab as the city’s recovery continues.
“We’ve come far enough as a city to where it’s no longer acceptable for us to simply say ‘wait a few years longer’ to our residents living on the blocks that our blight removal program won’t be able to reach in the short term,” said Mayor Duggan. “What we are committing to today is that all of the 25,000 blighted abandoned houses that still remain today will be demolished, rehabbed and reoccupied or secured by one of our Board Up Brigades over the next two years.”
Here is a breakdown of what has been accomplished so far in the effort to address the city’s vacant properties and the work that remains:
Since January 2014 (40,000 abandoned vacant houses)
- 12,000 demolished
- 3,000 rehabbed
Two-year plan to address remaining 25,000 abandoned houses
- 9,000 to be demolished
- 5,000 to be rehabbed and reoccupied through Land Bank Auction and Nuisance Abatement Program
- 11,000 remaining vacant houses to be boarded up within two years
This $9 million investment toward addressing blight in the city’s neighborhoods is a welcome relief for Darnetta Leak, who has had to look at the vacant houses on S. Annabelle Street for the past several years. “I wake up early to watch the children in the morning as they go to school,” said Leak, “I was never comfortable knowing they walked past the abandoned houses every day. Now, I’m happy because these houses are being boarded up, the children will be safe and the neighborhood will look a lot better.”
Opportunity for returning citizens
The $4.8 million board up program isn’t just good news for residents living near vacant houses. It’s also providing a second chance for 13 returning citizens who have been hired by the City. Eventually, as many as 20 returning citizens may be hired to work on the neighborhood improvement project. One of those people already hired is Lynard Brown, who after just three weeks with the city was promoted to be a crew foreman. Brown had been unable to find work for the past year, until he was hired by City.
“I am so happy to be employed again,” said Brown. “This program has given me a great opportunity to give back and to make a difference.”
How it will work
The houses being boarded up are being identified by registered block clubs in the city working with the Mayor’s Department of Neighborhoods. Approximately 150 organizations were asked to submit their requested list by August 1st. Those lists are being used by the Board Up teams to develop board up zones and boards ups are prioritized based on the date the requests were submitted. Once the requested houses on the list are completed, crews will survey that zone to identify any other vacant houses that require boarding up and address those before they move on to the next zone.
In addition to hiring 40 workers of its own, the City also will be contracting with two community-based organizations to meet the anticipated production of up to 200 houses per week. The city is currently reviewing responses to an RFP it recently issued and will select the two partners in the coming weeks. At full capacity, the city will have 10 three-person crews operating across the city on any given day.
The City’s General Services Department Director, Brad Dick, said that he expects to have all 10 crews up and running in the next few months. “By the end of September, we expect to be boarding up 40 houses each week and will double our rate each month until we get up to 200 every week,” Dick said. “So far it’s been going very well and we all very proud of Lynard and all of our returning citizens who have really inspired all of us.”