Sinai-Grace Guild Community Development Corp. is developing a program that will provide incentives to help people to move into homes in northwest Detroit and education subsidies to help others into good-paying jobs that enable them to buy homes in the area.

It's one of several efforts CDCs in the city are making with support from the Ballmer Group, the philanthropic effort by former Microsoft Corp. CEO Stephen Ballmer and his wife, Connie. Ballmer Group is putting bets on place-based strategies as one approach to spurring economic mobility for Detroiters living in poverty.

Set to launch next year, the Northwest Anchor Strategy would be among the first neighborhood-based housing incentive programs offered in Detroit outside of similar efforts that helped attract people to the city's downtown and Midtown neighborhoods roughly eight years ago.

It will build on other anchor-based neighborhood stabilization efforts with an anchor at the center, like the University of Michigan's and Detroit Public Schools Community District's plan to jointly fundraise to put housing incentives in place to attract young teachers to live in the area around the cradle-to-college concept they are developing at the historic Marygrove College campus, just a mile and a half from DMC Sinai-Grace Hospital.

The Sinai-Grace Guild program will focus housing incentives on current and potential employees of the hospital. But in a new twist, it will incorporate education and training delivered by Wayne County Community College District to help employees move into good jobs at the hospital and position them to buy homes nearby.

Incentives including down payment and closing costs assistance and education subsidies will be funded with support from the Ballmer Group and one of its national grantees, Enterprise Community Partners, building on the operational support the hospital, Ford Foundation and other foundations provide to the CDC, said Lisa Jones, executive director of the Sinai-Grace Guild CDC.

Originally the idea of the hospital's former CEO Conrad Mallet Jr., now DMC's chief administrative officer, the developing program is set to roll out next year with an estimated 20 participants, Jones said. CDCs are working closely with residents in the neighborhoods and gauging needs on an ongoing basis, said Kylee Mitchell Wells, executive director of Ballmer's Detroit operations.

The grassroots groups are enabling Ballmer to "get smarter faster" about the needs of those living in poverty in Detroit, as they relate to jobs, education, health and human services, Wells said.

"As we think about making investments, we don't want to be doing that from an ivory tower. We want to be side by side with community leaders … who understand the need."

What Ballmer is hearing from CDCs is that residents want jobs, she said. And health care offers a lot of career pathways.

That's why the Sinai-Grace partnership with health care and an education institution is one to watch, Wells said.

"We want to learn how the program can be replicated in other communities."