Intro to GRDC

I was placed at the Grandmont Rosedale Development Corporation and could not be happier! The GRDC is a community nonprofit that works for the residents of five neighborhoods: Grandmont, Grandmont #1, Rosedale, North Rosedale, and Minnock Park. While they do organize community events like a Farmer’s Market and engage in beautification, they are not simply a neighborhood association. The GRDC has a quality of life strategic plan as well as an entire city revitalization proposal. One of their five main componants is community security, which is the topic of my research. For the past few years, the GRDC has been lobbying the state and local government to establish a Special Assessment District Ordinance. This ordinance would allow a Detroit community such as Grandmont Rosedale to tax themselves in order to pay for extra securities, including and limited to, security, mosquito abatement, and snow removal services. GRDC is especially interested in hiring extra security services in order to meet residents’ needs as well as re-establish the community as a top place to live in Detroit.

If/when the ordinance is passed by the Detroit City Council, the GRDC will need to collect signatures from at least 51% of residents in support of the extra property tax. This summer, I will be developing a campaign plan for the GRDC to use to convince residents to sign on. I will compile answers to questions we predict residents might ask about the intricacies of the law, compile a document of “best practices” from around the country, and analyze various strategies used on similar campaigns.

Not only does this seem like a really cool project, but I also get to interact daily with community members. It’s especially important to me that I get such close contact with the people working at the GRDC because the GRDC is really good at what it does. For example, they have a home revitalization program in which they buy and renovate vacant, dilapidated houses. This can cost the organization up to $100,000 but they then sell the house for much less. In the past twenty years or so, they have flipped and sold close to one hundred houses! Furthermore, they have a strong mission to maintain a mixed-income community, which they encourage by offering fair, low-cost loans to low-income home-owners.

There is so much more to say about the GRDC (and I haven’t even gotten to my actual experiences there!) but I will save it for another post!