Last weekend, I attended a community organizing training at my worksite (DHDC), and I learned a lot more about the issues in Southwest Detroit and within the Hispanic population of Michigan. These issues include:
- Safety: lack of police participation, crime
- Gentrification
- Education, problems in both the charter and public schools
- Wages for immigrant workers, exploited due to legal status
- State licenses regardless of documentation
- Public transportation
- Poverty
- Lack of cultural pride
- School to prison pipeline
- Lack of youth pursuing high school/college education
I have read a lot about these issues in my research, but having community members speak out personally about these had a tremendous effect on me. After last weekend and through my research thus far, I have realized that Community Development Corporations such as the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation are established for the purpose of organizing the community. In other words, DHDC strives to give a voice to the otherwise disenfranchised Latino immigrant community of Southwest Detroit.
DHDC currently struggles to retain a key group of participants to make changes in the community. For that reason efforts such as this weekend’s workshop, which challenged the staff here to review current community organizing tactics, are necessary for the future growth and development of the corporation. I also think that my role as a research intern becomes more pronounced during these transition periods. Hopefully my research will help our Family Services department stay on the right track in terms of parent organizing.
Since I’ve moved to Detroit, I have taken a lot of interest in the juxtaposition between the new, developing hipster parts and the struggling neighborhoods with long-time residents. I feel caught between two perceptions of the city. I know Detroit isn’t a safe city. I know what happens when the sun goes down. But I also have hope that these things can change: the gangs, the drugs, the crime, the poverty. I hate to think otherwise. Currently, outside investment flows into the city, but most of it does not go where it needs to be going, which is to the neighborhoods, to the schools and to create equal opportunities. Detroiters are fed up with the lack of community input regarding these huge redevelopment projects made by city officials.
And in the end, the minority communities (such as the Hispanic Southwest population) that these projects affect the most.
Great post Laura! I have heard many community members speak out as well and it is unnerving at times. Fortunately, I met tons of organizers that are working diligently to rectify the problems mentioned in your post. I was pessimistic before the community gatherings I attended, but now I am confident many of theses issues will be resolved.
Hey Laura, loved your post! Working at a CDC as well, I can definitely resonate with the effect that hearing community members speak out personally about the problems they deal with on a daily basis had on me. Having an interest in urban planning, I’ve studied so many of these issues before, but nothing compares to actually hearing what people live with everyday. Northeast Detroit also deals with many of the same issues you identified here, especially crime, poverty, lack of investment in the area, and being fed up with city officials and resident millionaires. As you said, some areas of Detroit are seeing a flood of investment dollars, but my area isn’t one of them…all Detroiters deserve more.