$600,000 in donations to fight blight in Brightmoor Motor City Blight Busters gets $200,000

Matt Helms | Detroit Free Press

The Brightmoor neighborhood on Detroit’s northwest side will see 25 blighted homes torn down and more than 100 overgrown, dangerous vacant lots cleared, a project funded by private donations to the city’s blight fight, officials said today.

The Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation donated $500,000 to the effort and Ajax Paving an additional $100,000, money that will pay for tearing down 19 homes and clearing the vacant lots. The city will use federal funding to remove six other homes.

The project is focused around Samuel Gompers Elementary School, which Brightmoor leaders called a hub of the community.

“This is just another step in rebuilding the city,” Mayor Mike Duggan said at a news conference at the school. “This school is the path to success for the young people who are growing up here. And the community said let’s concentrate all the efforts around the school. Let’s show the boys and girls in this community what they mean to us.”

The Fisher foundation has invested heavily in hard-hit Brightmoor since 2008 on issues such as education, job training, job creation and blight removal. In addition to the $500,000 the foundation announced today, the foundation's vice chairman, David Sherman, announced a $200,000 donation to Motor City Blight Busters.

Once a thriving working-class neighborhood, the four square miles of Brightmoor between Evergreen and Telegraph along I-96 suffered deep loss of population and businesses over the last four decades; 25,000 people lived in Brightmoor in 1990, a figure that dropped to 12,000 by 2010, city officials say.

Gompers is a beacon in the neighborhood, a $21-million school built in 2011, consolidating three schools into one, with an emphasis on math and science.

Principal Bobbie Posey-Milner recalled her own childhood growing up in Detroit and attending public schools.

"When I walked to school, I did not see this; I felt safe," she said of the blight and vacant lots across Pierson Street from the back of the school. "So as I look at what they plan to do to tear down this blight ... I am so happy that we have begun the process."

City Councilman James Tate, whose district includes Brightmoor, said the blight removal alone won't transform the neighborhood.

The city has removed more than 200 vacant homes and other buildings in Brightmoor since 2014.

"But it is a major, major piece of what's going to help get this community to its next and, prayerfully, best version that we've ever seen," Tate said. "I'm excited about all the changes that are coming to Brightmoor."

Pastor Larry Simmons, executive director of the Brightmoor Alliance, a coalition of about 50 organizations providing services to the neighborhood, praised the Duggan administration for seeking input from Brightmoor residents on where to target the blight removal.

Approached by city officials, residents and leaders in the neighborhood pressed the city to emphasize safe passage to school for the children who attend Gompers. So, the blight removal will focus on several blocks adjacent to and near the school, including Lyndon, Pierson and Acacia.

Contact Matt Helms: 313-222-1450 or mhelms@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter: @matthelms.