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| On Friday, June 5, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan unveiled a new initiative that will help city employees buy and repair homes in the city. The new pilot mortgage loan program is available to all active and contract city workers who purchase a home through the Detroit Land Bank Authority’s home auctions this year.
The Great Recession and high unemployment led to a rash of vacant urban homes in Detroit; however, Mayor Duggan says the new loan program will be a salve for neighborhoods suffering from urban blight. And because only half of the city’s employees actually live within the Detroit city limits, the mayor hopes the program will boost employee residency as well. Detroit city workers with a credit score of at least 620 will be eligible for the loans, so long as they volunteer for financial counseling. Then, home buyers can receive 15-year, fixed-rate mortgages of up to 300% of the home’s value to make needed repairs. The loans will be available to city employees, retirees, contract workers, and their families. “We want to find constructive ways to get folks back,” said Mayor Duggan. “This is what we are going to continue to do. It’s our way of saying thank you to the employees.” In March, the mayor rolled out another home improvement incentive program to help the city’s low-income residents. The Duggan administration and nonprofit Local Initiatives Support Corp. offered low-income homeowners interest-free loans of up to $25,000 for home repair and improvement projects. Typically, homeowners spend as much as 4% of their home’s value on repairs every year, and many residents in high-poverty neighborhoods will benefit from the program. The interest-free home improvement loans cover necessities like window replacement, plumbing, and roof repair costs. The programs are just the latest headlines to come from an ongoing effort to revitalize Detroit’s neighborhoods. In February, the Mayor offered a 50% discount to employees who bought homes at auction. “This isn’t about publicity,” said Sandro DiNello, CEO of Flagstar Bank, which partnered with the mayor for the new loan program. “This is about getting something together that works…It’s important that we provide this little boost to getting these neighborhoods back on their feet.” |
Year: 2015
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Duggan: Repair Detroit One House at a Time
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DTE’s Michigan Consumers Saved Millions Last Year Through Efficiency Efforts
Energy efficiency initiatives saved Michigan utility consumers $585 million in 2014, DTE Energy announced in June, and the steps taken by these residents are projected to have a combined lifetime savings value of more than $4.5 billion. “In 2014, more than 550,000 electric and 300,000 natural gas customers participated in programs to better manage their energy use and save money,” Irene Dimitry, DTE Energy’s vice president of business planning and development, said in a statement. “We’re delighted that so many of our customers are engaged in programs and services designed to make energy more affordable.”
Energy efficiency refers to accomplishing the same tasks while using less energy, and often relies on upgrading technological components or whole appliances. The average fridge sold today, for example, uses 75% less energy than its 1975 counterpart (despite being 20% larger and 60% cheaper).
DTE offered programs and rebates for the installation of energy-efficient equipment and fixtures to both business and residential customers last year. Highlights of the company’s initiatives include, according to Dimitry:
- Performing more than 29,000 in-home residential consultations
- Outfitting more than 27,000 individual apartments with more efficient fixtures
- Recycling more than 33,000 outdated appliances
- Offering discounts on more than 4.7 million energy-efficient lights, including compact florescent bulbs and LEDs
- Drawing more than 15,000 businesses into efficiency efforts
The company also launched the DTE Insight app, designed to help customers track and manage their energy use. The app was downloaded more than 35,000 times in the last year.
Dimitry said all these efforts are part of the utility company’s mission to provide affordable and responsible energy to all its customers. She also announced earlier this month that DTE is looking to cut a 43-cent surcharge from its bills starting next January, lowering overall consumer costs by about $15 million per year.
The utility is now seeking contractors to evaluate its current efficiency programs and shape their trajectories into 2016 and 2017 (with bidding for the contracts due to end June 12).
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Detroit Residents Face Increased Health Problems
A shocking new study released this week revealed that 95% of the world’s population suffers from health problems, and one in three people suffer from multiple ailments simultaneously. That means 2.3 billion individuals struggled to cope with five or more illnesses at once in 2013, a dramatic increase over previous years. According to the “Global Burden of Disease Study,” the most common health problems worldwide include lower back and neck pain, depression, and drug and alcohol abuse disorders. That study’s release coincides with a local report issued this week about the unique health problems facing Detroit’s low-income residents. A University of Michigan study found that the stress of coping with extreme poverty accelerates the onset of age-related illnesses, and can dramatically lower life expectancy in the city.
“Currently, residents of Detroit are struggling — whether they are white, black, or of Mexican descent — in ways that measurably impact their health negatively,” said Arline Geronimus, a University of Michigan professor.
Last week, state lawmakers invited residents from the Detroit area to discuss concerns over toxic, possibly even cancerous, drinking water. In Flint, citizens draw their water from the Flint River, which has been poisoned by decades of pollution from auto factories. According to reports, politicians knew about the dangerous water for more than 10 months. Now, residents are demanding the state restore access to the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s safer water sources.
According to the studies, lower back and neck pain is one of the most common health problems, both in Detroit and internationally. More than 80% of the global population will suffer from back or neck pain in their lifetime, while in the U.S. back and neck pain is the leading cause of disability in Americans under the age of 45. Every year, Americans spend $50 billion to treat the condition.
“The fact that mortality is declining faster than non-fatal disease and injury prevalence is further evidence of the importance of paying attention to the rising health loss from these leading causes of disability, and not simply focusing on reducing mortality,” said GBD lead author Theo Voss, a professor at the University of Washington.
The Global Burden of Disease Study analyzed world health problems in 2013 and was sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
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Detroit Dubbed 10th-Hottest Real Estate Market in the Nation
The Detroit-Warren-Dearborn metropolitan area was the 10th-hottest real estate market in the nation in May, according to Realtor.com figures released June 1.
Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke and his team looked at views per listing on the website as a stand-in for demand, with the median age of inventory acting as a proxy for supply.
Michigan was actually represented twice on the resulting top-20 list, with Ann Arbor coming in ninth, just ahead of Detroit.
Denver, CO, topped the list, and various cities in California claimed half of the 20 spots.
Detroit was able to move one spot higher than it was in April to get into the top 10. The city as a whole has seen a resurgence lately, especially considering it filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy just under two years ago, in the largest municipal bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.
Visits and searches for listings across the country have increased, Smoke said, indicating the still-recovering home market and growing interest among would-be homebuyers. Visits and searches are up more than 50% and 35%, respectively, when compared to this same time last year, he explained.
But many housing markets are seeing a tighter supply, making it difficult for buyers to find the properties they want (and, of course, some buyers are notoriously picky — about 38% of people want carpet in the master bedroom, more than half of buyers will pay more for hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances are in high demand, etc.).
Housing Supply Concerns in Detroit
In Detroit’s housing market, there’s also quite a bit of concern over gentrification, as lower-income and largely minority neighborhoods are being taken over and renovated to appeal to high-end buyers.Upgrading may sound like a good thing all around, but it can leave to a severe shortage of affordable housing and displace people from the neighborhoods where they have long worked and lived.
As recently as June 3, New American Media reported on a case in which Detroit low-income elders, many of them black, were essentially forcibly relocated when their senior housing was converted into a luxury building.
Tam E. Perry, an assistant professor at Wayne State, told the New American that the objective isn’t to stifle progress, but rather to make sure Detroit is a city that takes care of residents of all backgrounds. “We are trying to ask … what do we need to do to ensure that whole cohorts are not leaving the city because of these issues?” she said.
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Inside Jack White’s Homecoming: Musician to Open Third Man Records Outpost in Detroit
After years of operating out of Nashville, Jack White’s Third Man Records is finally coming home. According to a June 2 Rolling Stone article, White — the Detroit native behind the White Stripes, the Raconteurs, the Dead Weather and two solo albums — plans to open a retail and office space for his Third Man Records in Detroit by November 27.
White originally founded Third Man Records in Detroit in 2001; the label didn’t get a physical location until 2009, when White set up its headquarters in Nashville. Third Man’s Detroit outpost will be located at 441 W. Canfield Street, in the heart of the Cass Corridor neighborhood.
It’s a fitting location for the rocker’s record label; White went to high school in this area, and the White Stripes played their very first show in the Cass Corridor nearly two decades ago.
“(It’s) the most inspiring area of Detroit for me as an artist and as a Detroiter,” White said in a statement. “From the great visual artists like Gordon Newton to the music of the Gories, and the birth of the Detroit garage rock scene, the Corridor has nurtured Detroit’s soul and inventiveness for decades.”
Third Man Records acquired the retail space through a partnership with lifestyle brand Shinola, a company that has helped bring manufacturing jobs back to Motor City.
The record label plans to pattern its Detroit location after its warehouse-like Nashville space, which is outfitted in a catchy yellow-and-red motif, the Detroit Free Press reported. While there are, on average, about 5.5 warehouse-related injuries per 100 workers, the Nashville warehouse space — which features a recording studio and label offices — is undoubtedly a perfectly safe place to work.
And while Third Man Records continues to thrive at its Nashville quarters, its executives say it’s the right time to make a long-awaited return to where it all started.
“Detroit will always be our hometown, by birth and by mindset too,” said Third Man’s Ben Blackwell. “We’ve always wanted to have some sort of presence back here. This was the right time.”