MorningSide’s Motor City Makeover Clean up
By: Candice Williams
May 20, 2010
Earlier this month, about 10 volunteers dedicated a Saturday morning to work at a vacant home in the 4100 block of Buckingham.
The clean up, near Clark Elementary School, consisted of clearing the driveway of trash and clearing some brush in an adjoining lot. Some items were designated for recycling. Bottled water and donuts were provided...(more)
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Fighting back from the foreclosure blast zone
by: Sheena Harrison
CNNMoney.com
April 29, 2010
In a city filled with foreclosures and abandoned buildings, East Warren Avenue on Detroit's east side could be called the epicenter. Banks own 1,331 buildings in the surrounding 48224 zip code. More than 7 percent of homes in the area were in foreclosure last year -- the highest rate in the city.
Vacant and boarded-up dwellings sit among the homes in this middle-class neighborhood -- many of which have signs saying "Bring back the pride" on their lawns. In the local business district, empty storefronts are interspersed with older businesses that have been around for decades and a handful of newer shops.
As residents move out, Bill Swanson spends his days trying to persuade businesses to move into those vacant commercial spaces. Shop by shop and block by block, the head of the local business alliance is waging a grassroots fight against crime, blight and neglect. He sees reviving the area's retail zone as the first step to wooing new residents...(more)
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37 Minutes in MorningSide with Kelley Marks
By: Rodd Monts
February 02, 2010
It is a sunny afternoon in the East Side Detroit neighborhood known as MorningSide, one of the largest and oldest communities in the city. The neighborhood had aged relatively well. until the foreclosure crisis dealt the area a blow mighty enough to shake its foundation. Plywood encased homes started showing up on block after block.
But on this sun-drenched day on Kelley Marks' block, there is much reason for hope. The street is buzzing with activity. Forklifts and compact tractors flit up and down the street moving building materials and supplies to the half-dozen homes in various stages of construction. Work crews scampered about helping nudge a few homes closer to completion.
Marks, 31, is the president of the MorningSide Neighborhood Organization, and her block is ground zero of a massive building effort by Habitat for Humanity Detroit. Model asked her for 37 Minutes to ...(more)
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NEW GRANT HELPS NONPROFITS PROTECT VACANT PROPERTIES
DETROIT- Feb. 13, 2009
Community Legal Resources will award mini-grants to nine
Detroit community-based organizations. The grants will help residents maintain and
protect vacant property in their neighborhoods. The grants will be awarded through the
Community and Property Preservation (CAPP) program, which is funded by The Kresge Foundation.
The nine organizations approved for CAPP grants are Detroit Catholic Pastoral
Alliance, Focus: Hope, Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation, MorningSide,
Oakman Boulevard Community Association Housing Corporation, Pilgrim Village
Association, The Villages CDC, University District Radio Patrol, and U-SNAP-BAC
Housing Corporation.
A pilot project, the CAPP program provides supplemental financial assistance to community-based organizations that are incurring costs due to do-it-yourself vacant property maintenance and security initiatives. The CAPP program will help stabilize Detroit neighborhoods suffering from increasing numbers of vacant properties and declining vacant property conditions.
Community Legal Resources received 49 grant applications in total. The applicant pool was very diverse, representing different income levels, organization types, and geographic areas of the city.
In general, organizations applied for funding for security and maintenance
activities, such as 1) mowing lawns, 2) boarding up properties, and 3) cleaning trash from
vacant properties.
Steve Wasko, former president of the Historic Indian Village Association and first president of the Villages CDC, said the grant will help them achieve their goal of “…keeping all properties viable, maintaining home values, and making vacant property crime something…too risky to undertake.”
In addition to ongoing vacant property security and maintenance activities, the
grants will also fund many innovative activities including: installing exterior solarpowered
motion detector lights, putting up exterior indicators so police and security
forces can easily identify vacant properties, providing gas gift cards for residents that mow the lawns of vacant properties, starting a “Clean Corps” comprised of neighborhood
youth that will improve and document vacant properties, and painting murals on boarded
properties.
The CAPP program is funded by the Kresge Foundation and administered by
Community Legal Resources (CLR). CLR is a nonprofit legal services provider and the
lead organization on a collaborative project called the Detroit Vacant Property Campaign
(DVPC). The DVPC is an initiative of Detroit Local Initiatives Support Corporation and
involves community groups, city residents, faith-based organizations, Community
Development Advocates of Detroit, the University Of Michigan Taubman College Of
Architecture and Urban Planning, and the City of Detroit. The purpose of the campaign is
to empower Detroit residents to reduce the negative effects of vacant properties and turn
vacant properties into neighborhood assets. For more information, please see
www.detroitvacantproperty.org.
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Detroit nonprofits receive grants for maintaining vacant property
By Sherri Begin Welch
Cain’s Detroit Business
Community Legal Resources has awarded $60,000 to nine local nonprofits to maintain and protect vacant property in their Detroit neighborhoods.
The sub-grants came through Community Legal Resources’ Detroit Vacant Property Campaign, funded by the Troy-based Kresge Foundation.
The nine organizations that received grants ranging from $4,000 to $10,000 were: Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, Focus: HOPE, Grandmont Rosedale Development Corp., Villages Community Development Corp, MorningSide, Oakman Boulevard Community Association Housing Corp., Pilgrim Village Association, University District Radio Patrol and U-Snap-Bac Housing Corp.
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Georgia Street Community Collective: An East Side Neighborhood Grows Together
By: Zak Rosen and Marvin Shaouni
Model D
The Georgia Street Community Collective garden has brought neighbors together and more importantly changed attitudes in this East Side neighborhood.
WDET 101.9 FM's Zak Rosen and Model D photographer Marvin Shaouni collaborated on this report on the grassroots garden and community collective, located at the 9300 Block of Georgia and Vinton streets between VanDyke and Gratiot.
Rosen has been reporting on Detroiters' efforts to combat the mortgage crisis and preserve their neighborhoods as part of WDET's series, "Home is More Than Our House," which airs regularly through the end of the month. You can read more on their blog.
Want to get involved with Georgia Street? The Georgia Street Community Collective has a wish list and more info on their blog.
