Three former Land Bank homes in the northeast Detroit Osborn neighborhood could signal a new program to increase wealth and affordable housing in the city. Community partners gathered this week in the neighborhood to share this Strategic Neighborhood Fund project.
The Osborn Neighborhood Alliance is spearheading the program. With financial support from the Detroit Housing & Revitalization Department, Invest Detroit, the Strategic Neighborhood Fund, and Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), these multifamily homes will be rehabbed, then sold to families to live in one unit and rent out the other.
The homes will be sold to those making up to 80 percent Area Median Income. The rentals will be for people making 60 percent at or below AMI and with Section 8 vouchers. Each of units in the duplexes has three bedrooms and two baths.
Renovations should be finished by the end of the year, and include new roofs and new kitchens and bathrooms.
The homes are located on Mapleridge Street, between Gratiot and Schoenherr.
The Strategic Neighborhood Fund works to identify improvement projects in neighborhoods across the city, such as upgrading parks and streetscapes, as well as revitalizing storefronts and housing.
“The Strategic Neighborhood Fund is truly a collaboration between corporations and Detroit neighborhoods to increase the quality of life and so that communities become a place where residents, live, work and play,” said Quincy Jones, executive director of the Osborn Neighborhood Alliance. “We sold two of the three Mapleridge duplexes before renovations even began, so I see this as a business model that could be successfully replicated in Osborn and other neighborhoods.”
