Being back in Detroit feels great. Every assignment I am doing, from handing out flyers to conducting research, I feel as if I am playing my part to help my organization help Detroit. My organization strives to restore northeast Detroit through affordable housing, business retention, beautification and block club formation. Day to day we put forth a real effort to get the community involved in this process of restoration. We make many phone calls, pass out flyers, and contact various block club leaders daily in order to get the word out for our meetings. However, I’ve noticed that the turn out is very low. This has been a recurring thing with most of the meetings that I’ve attended. It all boils down to ” Does the community really care?”
I’ve taken time out the think about why citizens do not attend meetings or support those who strive to make the community a better place. Don’t get me wrong, there are some individuals that care and are working hard, but the majority seems to not show an interest. As I drive through Detroit, I’ve notice a few recurring issues, such as blight, overgrown grass, and many abandoned houses. Drug activity is very much visible and there are many dogs roaming the streets. The city of Detroit looks truly neglected.
I remember one day I asked a fellow student in the program who was not from the state of Michigan, what she thought of Detroit. She told me that it was overall “quite scary”. Puzzled I asked her “Why?” She explained to me that seeing all of the blight and abandoned houses frightened her and she wasn’t used to seeing a city in such conditions.
Until I came to Ann Arbor, I was not sure what a community “should look like”. I was so used to seeing Detroit in its current condition, that I didn’t realize there were problems. Living in Ann Arbor has exposed me to what a community should look like. Now my eyes are open and I am striving to make Detroit a better place, the place it should look like. As citizens of Detroit we deserve better, but if we do not know that there is better, we will never strive for it. If we do not know there is a problem, we will never look for a solution.
I really want Detroit to be restored, but altogether, I want the citizens in Detroit to take a real interest and strive for that restoration. In order for that to be done, we need to pull all of our efforts and work together to make Detroit greater. The other day I was at the mall with Danielle and Rebecca and I asked them to take this picture of me. I thought this mug was really cool! Like many other Detroit natives, I take great pride in my city. However, we need to turn that pride into a visible effort and make Detroit the great community it should be.
