Roots of the housing crisis started in the wake of the Great Migration

Service Industry Strikes Back :Escaping the Wage Earner Rut: The real roots of the housing crisis started in the wake of the Great Migration

Fitz Forward or Fitzed the %^$#@& Up ?

 Fitz Forward or Fitzed the %^$#@& Up ?

Fact: Upcoming Housing  auction for normal people not developers  in Detroit - October  2017

Did you know that certain neighborhoods have been on the radar since at least  1890 ? Thanks to Alex Hill and his site Detroitography - the history of  urban ideas in Detroit can be examined visually 

Let's talk @Fitzgerald  -  Map see section 9   Fitgerald is  Yellow box below#9  

(or click for a bigger visual )

 see section 9  ----Fitzgerald is divided diagonally by JC Lodge Freeway aka M-10

 In a Larry Gilbert original article  in metrotimes.com   Oct 4 2017 he mentions that he lives in the area. This area is a big project under the current mayor. Since the election will take place in a month, it is a part of Detroit that is not gentrified but is still getting attention- Fitzgerald is the experiment .
I was wondering what happens to people in urban experiments.

What if you want to be an active participant in your future?

 I grew up with HUD. Model Cities , Urban Renewal  and then I moved to NYC- Harlem.

clicking on box = easier to read 

So many dollars so little results. Neoliberal thought and action means there is not a tendency to throw federal /state/civic money at anything too large/unpredictable . Experience has shown to legislatures that agencies designed to improve urban environments tend to be ineffective.
Better to use private money.
 The unidentified 89 year old has her own money
so how much would she need to get a house in this improvement zone.???????

The less work needing to bring the house to habitation the better. So the first  Detroit Housing Auction in September tends to move houses that are more readily fixable.
Acccording to the official website  bidder registration started in August

Provided that the bidder is sharp and sticks to deadlines and is Internet savvy , all they really need is money in the bank  to bid on something decent- aka a Premium Property 
  

The specific rules for this auction are in a pdf .   The money requirements are from pg. 5-
not in this exact order 

III. THE AUCTION

1. The Auction will be conducted on the internet by the Treasurer, at

www.waynecountytreasurermi.com 

    Deposits and/or Bids

 WILL NOT BE accepted 

 at the Office of the Wayne County Treasurer. 

 At the sole discretion of the Treasurer a property identified as a (decent property)

 Premium Parcel may require a deposit of $25,000.00 and a registration fee of $35.00. A deposit of $25,000.00 will enable the bidder to bid on multiple properties.

In order to participate in the auction a deposit and registration fee are required.  

To bid on one  property the deposit is $1,000.00 with a registration fee of $35.00

Lower $$ attracts hipsters like me - all I want is a fixer upper with a taxable yard  of @ 1000 sq feet so I can park the mobile home and not incur the wrath of  the Zoning Board

 Deposit payments shall be submitted by utilizing the auction screens in order to be transferred to J.P. Morgan Chase’s online payment system. 

Hope you have a credit card   because prepaid debit/credit cards are not accepted

What are you buying? 
You had better drive by it first.
 Be careful.... it could be occupied, so do not go in!!

 My retired cop friend warned me that if I was this  a serious  purchase call him  so he could go along ... I had to admit it was not a bad idea, but since I was not in a rush to purchase I figured Zillow and a combination of Google Mapping and the auction.com site would do for this article.

Looking online in the Fitzgerald zipcode I quickly found a pleasant possibility 

The home resembles the colonial I grew up in pre and post  1967 Detroit    
it is 16573 Griggs  -   and listed for @ 20K
the go to site is Loveland  Technologies   Detroit if you are bidding   https://detroit.makeloveland.com/#p=/us/mi/wayne/detroit/62898 

 Thoroughly  examine  the zoning and plot info  links to the Wayne County site that you need to consult before going to the bidding site  www.waynecountytreasurermi.com 

•  You need to do Due Diligence  - there is a kiosk where you can look up parcels/info  
• You must check the deed information before you purchase a parcel. 
• Deed information can be checked at the kiosk for free, at 400 Monroe Street, 7th Floor.

Finally,  if you are feeling pretty comfortable about the purchase , review your contractors on Angie's List/ Home Adviser .com and vet their honesty.  The main thing to know is their willingness to work in Fitzgerald - the Home Depot is   on 7  mile and Meyers and they will be making lots of trips. 

Do the math ---- on paper you need  to have liquid approximately 5 times what it would take to make a home habitable in 6 months because it will be furnished ...
 5 x 25,000  minus 25,000 for the auction is approximately  100,000 which  should cover EVERY last  Unforeseen, Emergency , Cursed  Nain Rouge problem that can happen

  

Set aside   3.5 times the initial cost of the bid margin (25,000 x 3.5)  for   work by deadline : 
there is still a fixer upper deadline in these Special sales!Also assume you will need basic decent furniture/appliances  that fits the house  -stove, fridge, washer, dryer, bed, couch, table, chair ..
..adds up to the other 1.5 times the initial investment.(25,000 x 1.5 )

 Guess who is not that affluent??? Despite  saving $ by not paying average  NYC rent , and having some $ in the bank , this writer decided it was too easy to  spend 100 K total . Also This writer is not trying to flip anything since we never had 100 K to begin with.
 If you want to simply retire and not be too worried about hurricanes, bad guardians , living wills, rising taxes, etc , it makes sense to move to Kentucky and grow tomatoes.

 What can that 89 year old in 48227 do ?That 89 year old could easily overspend for her child and offspring.  I hope you are using an online calculator, printing the results  and asking yourself

Can it get done for less?

If you belong to the Boomer demographic (lets say Zoomer - Plan to Ski when retired) You are computer savvy compared to an 89 year old . In my case , the move back to the Detroit Metro area   from NYC  gave me a unique perspective. I could go hipster and be creative , even Detropia on this Land Bank and do something cool... using grant money along with my money, and I could plan it all out by research online. No tiny  house in my future. Hello Brick House with features!!

That did not happen . Money went to other things , like school loans.
Despite tools, rough carpentry background and friends with skills the $500 dollar house was a fleeting dream-Even with me getting the permits and parking the motorhome on site  with tools and a concealed permit, as suggested by my retired cop friend,I knew better... $500 dollars needs to be 50,000  - just the gas needed to transport materials would add up quickly. The obvious costs versus the hidden ones like security for the tools until the job was DONE.
 (I would probably just hire security anyway which means the $500 dollar house is no longer at $500..)

But dreamers deserve to dream and maybe get a book out of their efforts...

Just in case you want to go that route here is a  16  things to deal with   Buzzfeed article  . More interesting is the  article about the book written by

  Amy Haimerl  and her partner Karl Kaebnick on the initial  35 K investment (which is $ amount total  Wayne County Bid  pg 5  of the auction rules .pdf cites for the Premium Parcel)  They ended up spending a lot more.

 Most 89 year old Detroiters cannot afford to do what Drew Phillips did either-

https://www.amazon.com/500-House-Detroit-Rebuilding-Abandoned/dp/1476797986#reader_1476797986

I have yet to find a memoir  by a Boomer / Retiree or a Black Person or all three at once! 

 on restoring a house in Detroit. 

This also explains why the Hungry Black Man does not see a Boomer / Retiree /Black Person  Demographic ( the type that reads Black Enterprise, travels abroad and supports HBCU's)

 regularly populating restaurants in Detroit ...

Now because I find myself easily 20 miles from Corktown or Agnes Street /Grand River (sorry Vegan Soul) and have other responsibilities...

 Taking on a restoration project or even traveling to eat out is a no go. Being a homebody  is probably true for those who live in my old neighborhood or Fitzgerald as well . Not easy to go out on the regular , driving and discovering the next cool thing that is  popping up less than 10 miles via M10/Lodge Freeway . It should be easy to figure out that Boomers are not in the home renovation business in Detroit due to Life getting in the way. Yet they are the ones with some need to establish security  - but not the 89 year old----- this will wreck her security  ...

....Be kind to this 89 year old. Her auction project could be realized It is all about being in the Know and reading every last link in this article .... It is about doing doing the math. Consider the  great Metropolitan area between the riverfront and the old Selfridge Air force base even though it is not all Oakland county . Money not extending far enough  is the issue.  The  average cost of taxes, water bill, and electric resulted in a  9% increase in Oakland county in 2017 . If you are a retiree,your social security /pension had to absorb a 9 % increase  from 2016-2017 just because you live in the general area between here and the closest farmland. 
(No stats for Detroit yet but lets say it went up about that much there too) 

 Your ability to absorb  that 9%   is based on an income above $37,000- which is easily done in Oakland county since the median income in @ 65 ,000 . 
Guess what the medium income is in Detroit ?  

Conclusion :you will do fine- in Oakland County so get your kid to take over your old house in Fitzgerald, and you need to move out here to Waterford , South Milford or Pontiac - Unless you are very connected to your church you will find a new community here by using on demand SMART transit to hang out  at the local civic center.
Here is Troy as an example

 Then again, it all depends on the schools. Maybe you stay put and get your grandkids in the aforementioned towns where the education is almost as good as private, and it is free.
Your Call. Just do not Fitz yourself.

Why Detroit is such a #$%^& for long term residents

Q?  Why Detroit is such a #!@#$%^&*&  for long-term residents?

A. Several facts no one in polite company will acknowledge..

see the links too 

or scroll to the very end to see the facts summarized in a list.

 Remember that Detroit is unique in its' status as a destination of the Great Migration for any body who could not make a living between the two world wars (Great Depression)  However recessions  followed each of the 2 world wars.  Keep this in mind...because Detroit goes through economic swings more often that the rest of the country regardless of the Bankruptcy. I count seven national  recessions between my preschool years and leaving for NYC in the mid 1980s.Black people disportionately felt every little economic hiccup.




The great Migration occurred several times in Detroit's history.It included southern whites and Immigrant Mexicans as well as blacks, but lets concentrate on black migration.  In my case I had parents who after being married on the west coast, and leaving the Air Force and their families in the south- thought Detroit was the next logical step. My dad thought he had a job in Detroit- one that utilized his degree in Electronics. This was post Korean war @ 1953.

 Thank Goodness he had a masters electricians degree and education to at least associates level (which was more than most Black men had post war- hence the migration) My parents  survived the  Eisenhower recession. How ? 

Initially my parents lived in  as tenants who had skills :  Dad was once as a super, then both dad and mom were   the  live in help for the owners of  Knorr Broadcasting Corporation / eventually WKNR Keener 13 radio. The black and white photos of them  in full chauffeur and maid ensembles do not bother me because I credit that stint with their ability to impress upon me money really is- its a tool that has to be used with wisdom .  I grew up with parents who knew how to get it, despite educations just barely  past grade 14...   For me  this resulted in an education in money: alternating maintenance periods of gaining knowledge (remember knowledge is power ) 
Also gaining currency in making alliances and contacts by  volunteering for after school programs . Finally alternated all that social currency  with earning money. This money gave me independence- gas in the car . The social currency  resulted in a decent paycheck at the Mall . Of course things have changed- thanks to the internet, and neoliberalism Yet the bootstrap and the boot it was attached to was  all was due to a firsthand experience  of what  luck* and money does. Detroit does not offer that lesson now.

Luck is a nebulous term but  if you agree that opportunity exists because of previous circumstances - *call it luck if your timing is right.   The timing is now forever off. Most cities no longer have working teens/young adults who have summer jobs and Detroit is particularly bad when it comes to employment  over the schoolbreak. For 6 weeks this federal program suggests how the private sector /not -for - profit sector creates  summer employment .  (Full disclosure I have run the programs- having never qualified for them . I worked for my dads company instead.)

  There is no longer a direct federal program for employment . You do have  several Federal Programs for Unemployment .This shift, which has happened in the last 30 years  teaches you nothing about money .   How do you  learn how not to have money if there is no money ??https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/06/disappearance-of-the-summer-job/529824/

My first job required working papers, and I started working on the books in high school - recessions be damned only because I lived at home , so I had a leg to stand on and a bootstrap to pull... My fellow classmates did not include any working poor- we were in private school after all.  However  all of my fellow black classmates were less than 3 months away from feeling the pain of poverty if our parents income suddenly ceased. You can only freelance so much. (Book -No Shame in My Game opens here)

  If you went to private schools from the Kennedy era onwards in   Detroit;   your timing was excellent . Bussing ,the civil rights movement and other social experiments  up to the Rebellion in 1967 just made it more and more difficult to stay employed without a career track. You had to make more than you did the year before. I understood that early- looked at my dads paychecks on the regular. He wore suits to his job although  he was not required to do so. Being one of the first black men to integrate the Engineering department  and management meant he even got paid during the bankruptcies. Most people who were not in his position  lost their jobs...


 Unfortunately that ability to make money in this town disappeared by the time I left for NYC in 1985. I had friends who lost teaching jobs because the school was downsizing or closing The school shut down  because the factory was no longer paying . People who had less than 10 years on the job for any of the Big Three Auto Companies  had to become service workers or move back down south if they wanted to eat. (broke the bootstrap - move before you lose the boot)

Which leaves the retirees and the blacks who make up this town-sitting on it. (losing the boots, cant use the legs anyway) Understand the frustration  of the blogger Hungry Black Man who wrote about Detroiters not availing themselves of the excellent restaurant scene in this city- who do not even hit the OG spots- who do not eat out at all... How do you engage these retirees who live within the borders of Detroit  who are barely hanging in there, who have no disposable  income  and when they do- they lack the education of the consumer to want to spend money outside the home.?? You don't engage them ....you live in your world and they live in theirs

 Just look at these stats. There is a new label for this phenomenon and the label is taboo - but it explains the stasis ,the wall between newly arrived and Downtown versus your grandparents or aging uncle in 48234.

   census.gov quickfacts Detroit                                                                                                                

  Detroit   Median household income (in 2015 dollars), 2011-2015    $25,764 

  In civilian labor force, total, % of population 16 yrs+,2011 -2015 53.0%

    

High  school graduate or higher, percent of persons age 25 years+, 2011-2015    78.3%
Bachelor's degree or higher, percent of persons age 25 years+, 2011-2015     13.5% Land area square miles, 2010    138.75  square miles 7.2 miles gentrified My migration from 1952 to 1985  Map by Detroitography.com

 more    census.gov quickfacts Detroit                 

  Detroit Persons in poverty     40.3%

population estimates, July 1, 2016, (V2016)    for all  living in Detroit     672 ,795 Black or African American  April 1, 2010   82.7%  (means 556,401 people in city are black)

Enough stats.  A picture is a thousand words  ???? A fellow blogger Alex Hill of Detroitography.com  posits this   about his maps  and gentrification 

"I would argue that these maps don’t tell the story of gentrification at all, but rather the impact of further disinvestment of the neighborhoods where Detroit residents live. As census tracts/ neighborhoods lose population, those who are able to stay are more likely to have higher income, education, etc."


Since we do not engage the people represented in the above statistics  ---------is there a work around? Yes if there is work that can be maintained. Do we have the tools to get work, and make it pay?  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/09/15/african-americans-are-the-only-racial-group-in-u-s-still-making-less-than-they-did-in-2000/?utm_term=.3e83cc436ab8

There are neighborhoods that are speculative and possibly open to change if the money flows...
Look at the amount of housing/land new money now owns.

As you know, the Detroit Land Bank has stopped cataloguing properties and the people who have brought properties to flip has slowed. The people who want to make a go of it and  do a fixer upper has also slowed. We now have to wait until the development zones  finish re- routing the streets to slow traffic/ rehab housing /community.  I do not possess an urban studies  degree but cul de sacs do not always produce nice results. See any street off the Jeffries .  If closed off neighborhoods work it is because of an artistic diverse presence that is not necessarily gentrifying , but integrates itself into the existing fabric.

4th street Garden at end of  cul de sac 

Example My favorite cul de sac is 4th street off  Holden near Wayne State University off the Lodge and Edsel Ford .  This street used to host a fair., then it ceased with the bankruptcy of 2013.As of 2017, two properties on 4th street are in trouble and may end up on the auction list, due to back taxes. Yet the cul de sac spirit lives on - see the  artists of Theatre Bizarre  at the DIY (Do it Yourself ) fair in Ferndale this weekend. I suspect that if you ask participants of this fair where they make their art now- its not in a cul de sac neighborhood in Detroit. Everybody knows when the artists leave the gentrification  usually starts. Here when the artists leave the neighborhood  stagnates at rates proportional to those with pedestrian jobs.


Who are they re-designing these neighborhoods for? The old retirees that dot the landscape can barely afford what they have now. New money  lives along the Q line corridor .
   My old neighborhood - the Northwest section  still has some grip on the bootstrap.It is not being gentrified. You could move there if you can afford it . My  grade school friend - who has stayed in Detroit all his life   suggests  I get a concealed weapon permit  if I move back to my old neighborhood. He is correct - @40,000 police  on the Streets of New York has  ruined my streets smarts radar.

 Northwest section does not need gentrifying but it does need a decent strip mall with some chain stores and a  nationally connected grocery . If you call that gentrification - rethink this. You gotta eat.
It would not hurt to have a hardware store - oops I forgot Home Depot took over the old Grace Hospital spot. Well that makes it easier to fix things up. Wonder how much money it takes since these are not the 500 dollar or even 1000 homes? Heard there is a guy who wrote a book about that...

 The wall - a real estate construct that was racist in the extreme , is less than 10 blocks from where I grew up- the redlining actual wall is still there.  If it was not for a future  private school classmate who knew my dad from the old neighborhood making a connection with a realtor  in the Northwest Section ... who knows where I would be now...

I do know my parents of the Great Migration refused to go back down South.  Yet recently ,  the return of people to the South may have accelerated the housing vacancy problem .It is called Unintended Consequences :  no job / or fixed retirement  savings means you cannot pay the ever growing tax bills and the highest insurance rates and water bills in the US.  Makes sense to move to  for  these people. 

There is hope - down South
 http://atlantablackstar.com/2016/02/04/2016-nielsen-report-black-buying-power-reached-tipping-point-will-black-america-leverage-create-wealth/

You want hope here- Not cutting and running ? Address the following list of issues.

Underclass - there is no project to socialize and rehouse people here 

why cant Detroit be an experiment ????

Internet - turn the internet on here in Detroit for free then  make the internet in Detroit  a 24 hour remedial education tool up to the associates level Hello Wayne State ,U of D Mercy ,University of Michigan etc time to do a win win- If college is free to the AS   some people will pay for the credits to the BS

Education - create after school  tutoring centers for Adults as well as kids toto support the internet learning  It would be another experiment  If  we do not increase the degree level of Detroit residents by 2020 ---THREE years from now 70% of the jobs will go to outsiders

Transportation You Need the other Q Line to the airport connecting the existing Q line.Jobs depend on it  Detroit needs to be the Mobile City not the Motor City  and The train tracks are already here

 Crime- the gangs exist because there are  members who can not hold certain well  paying jobs  requiring re schooling However if you paid them to do CCC level work they would probably be too  tired to get into trouble. Seriously. Physical Labor that pays @ 20+ an hour is transformative   The gangs here have members who have never worked- Do we need a physical  Katrina type situation  that as an  unintended consequence  reinforces   gang activity/ power -  Of course not!

 Detroit's' Bankruptcy was our Katrina. Now we need to deal with it with sophistication. 

If I stay I will be the re-gentrifier !

Retrieved 9/15/17 from the Gothamist

 http://gothamist.com/2014/02/26/

spike_lee_goes_off_about_the_mother.php

BY JEN CARLSON IN ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT ON FEB 26, 2014 7:50 AM

 It may take 25 or 50 years, but wait long enough and you too may get to experience falling rents and street crime!"

Detroit:Get Lucky or Get out says it is part of the great cycle of life. 

My  parents lived in de-gentrified, moved to gentrified and If I stay I will be the re-genrifier

 Most of the Detroit it is hoped gentrified, degentrified, and regentrified, and will be again at some point in the future     

But Detroit - it is too big and spread out - to be discussed next article

 but here is a  teaser 

https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2017/04/11/standing-in-the-shadow-of-industry-detroiters-feel-choked-out

At an event at Pratt last night, Spike Lee was asked about something he's been consistently passionate about: Gentrification. Specifically the gentrification of Brooklyn, where he was raised. In 2010 we asked him about this, and here's how that went:

Were you still living there when the neighborhood began transitioning into what it is now?When did you start noticing it changing? You know, you have to do your homework. You do your homework and you find out the specific year when gentrification took place.

I'm asking if you witnessed that gentrification. I can't give you an exact date.

Okay, but what was your own experience of it? [No response.]

This time around he had more to say, about seven minutes worth according to NY Mag—they transcribed the entire thing. They report back that he railed against the hipsters taking over Brooklyn—sorry, that's "motherfucking hipsters"—when asked about the "other side" of the gentrification debate ("there was some bullshit article in the New York Times saying ‘the good of gentrification'"). Here are some bullet points from his talk, as well as the audio, captured by NY Mag:

§  "Why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the South Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better? Why did it take this great influx of white people to get the schools better? The garbage wasn’t picked up every motherfuckin’ day when I was living in 165 Washington Park... The police weren’t around... When you see white mothers pushing their babies in strollers, three o’clock in the morning on 125th Street, that must tell you something."

§  "Then comes the motherfuckin’ Christopher Columbus Syndrome. You can’t discover this! We been here. You just can’t come and bogart. You can’t just come in the neighborhood and start bogarting and say, like you’re motherfuckin’ Columbus and kill off the Native Americans. Or what they do in Brazil, what they did to the indigenous people. You have to come with respect. There’s a code. There’s people. I’m for democracy and letting everybody live but you gotta have some respect. You can’t just come in when people have a culture that’s been laid down for generations and you come in and now shit gotta change because you’re here?"

§  "When Michael Jackson died they wanted to have a party for him in motherfuckin’ Fort Greene Park and all of a sudden the white people in Fort Greene said, 'Wait a minute! We can’t have black people having a party for Michael Jackson to celebrate his life. Who’s coming to the neighborhood? They’re gonna leave lots of garbage.' Garbage? Have you seen Fort Greene Park in the morning? It’s like the motherfuckin’ Westminster Dog Show. There’s 20,000 dogs running around."

§  [After discussing people not being able to afford Williamsburg anymore...] "These real estate motherfuckers are changing names! Stuyvestant Heights? [SpaHa] What the fuck is that? What do they call Bushwick now? How you changin’ names?"

Well, as Native New Yorker Jake Dobkin once penned, "If it's any consolation, like Autumn following Summer, degentrification ('urban decay') is the inevitable second stroke of the urban cycle. Some neighborhoods, like Fort Greene, have been gentrified, degentrified, and regentrified, and will be again at some point in the future. It may take 25 or 50 years, but wait long enough and you too may get to experience falling rents and street crime!"