Code enforcement exists in Detroit, MI. No, really. But in case you ever wondered what they did (you know, to pass the time) the Detroit Works Project has an idea. Under Mayor Dave Bing, Detroit will enact a triage type strategy that targets healthy neighborhoods with code enforcement crackdowns. The idea is to protect the healthy so that they do not become sick. However, the trick will be city government convincing the healthy that protection comes in the form of fines and frequent trips to Lowe’s and Sherwin Williams.

As someone with personal experience as a code officer, I truly have all the sympathy in the world for the officers who have to go out and tell a property owner something is wrong with their house. With this effort in Detroit, the officers and the city officials will have to communicate clearly and compassionately with the property owners cited for chipping paint and tall grass. It will be all too easy for these owners to point their fingers down the street at the house with a giant hole in it, or the four foot tall grass a couple blocks away and ask why aren’t these worse off properties being targeted, why is there not any change going on there?

Preventing complacency from sinking into the healthy neighborhoods is certainly a proactive step. The communities themselves should band together as well and assist the city by informing them which property owner is capable of performing the required changes, and who needs help if cited, before the code officer has to make the arduous trek up to front doors and begin the process of getting their ears chewed out. An approach that is only top-down would come off as stifling.

There is precedence for assisting those who do not have the means to improve their properties, one not far from Detroit. In the suburb of Sterling Heights, MI a very positive form of code enforcement has recently taken root. The Sterling Heights Initiative for Neighborhood Excellence (SHINE) was created as the strategy before code enforcement arrives on your front porch. SHINE staffers engage the public and canvass Sterling Heights just like code enforcement, but SHINE wants to find out why the violation exists, and then evaluate whether assistance is needed for the property owner. An aging population is a major concern and SHINE attempts to match volunteers who can assist the elderly to rake leaves, paint garages, or anything else that is manageable. Those without financial means to make the proper repairs are considered as well to receive assistance. Ultimately, SHINE intends to be code “instruction” instead of enforcement.

Of course something like SHINE takes a larger effort and has led to the coordination of many employees of Sterling Heights to help out by keeping their eyes open when they travel through their city. For Detroit, this has to happen within the communities themselves. Strong community groups with effective leaders like the SHINE team can help to build an inventory on their neighborhood and become the code instructors. By having stakeholders in the community protecting their own investments, admittedly in a self-motivating fashion, provides the incentive to go through with these efforts at all. Detroit has to listen to the community instead of just posting warnings on resident’s front doors, and the community should embrace this greater awareness coming from city government. Working together towards stabilization should be the goal and will prove effective in the long run. And as Sterling Heights moves forward with SHINE, this model can help serve as something that can be used across the board, giving the entire Detroit metro area a model of effective property up keep during these hard economic times. Best of all, it can lead to neighbors getting out of their homes and helping each other apply a fresh coat of paint next-door if this is contagious.