Dave Bing, Mayor of Detroit, recently unveiled a unique home ownership program to Detroit police officers in order to reverse two recent trends over the last few decades: 1) police officers who do not live in the city they patrol, and 2) a vast number of abandoned and foreclosed properties that devalue neighborhoods.

The program, which will offer police officers a chance to purchase foreclosed homes for $1,000, is named “Project 14” which is a police code name for “back to normal”. The plan also includes funds for rehabilitation of each home of up to $150,000. What makes this program unique is that the 200 homes are located in two stable areas that are on the National Historic Register: the Boston-Edison Historic District and the East English Village District. The houses are sturdy, well-made homes built in the early to mid-20th century, and just a few years ago would have sold for $150,000 to $750,000 or more.  Mayor Bing plans to use a mixture of federal Neighborhood Stabilization monies and home rehabilitation grants to fund this program.

This incentive is a part of a larger strategy that Mayor Bing has announced to “right-size” the City of Detroit. The City of Detroit has been losing population since the 1950s, when it reached the peak number of residents of approximately 1.8 million. The rise of the interstate system, coupled with ongoing racial discord, exacerbated the flight of people from the city to the suburbs; fifty years later, by the turn of the 21^st century, the population of Detroit had been reduced to approximately 800,000—less than half its former size. However, Detroit still maintained its status as one of the cities in America with the highest percentage of home ownership due to the relatively low cost of home ownership and the stability of secure and good-paying blue-collar jobs. Detroit was known as a city of proud and well-kept neighborhoods; each with a unique character. [MORE]