Tracking of participant evaluations strongly indicate a link between destructive behavior and the decreased quality of life resulting from a 50% unemployment rate within the city of Detroit. Participants self-report feeling a lack of pride in having to say they are Detroit residents, largely due to the deteriorated appearance of the city and the disconnection between residents. Lack of finances often prevents community collaborations from being successful.

The Mission provides prevention education, life skills counseling and support, basic needs assistance, and community-level interventions that support a high quality of life for Detroit residents, their families and neighborhoods. The agency’s Rebuilding Lives Project forms a continuum of services developed as a tool for identifying and maximizing the potential of its participants, working to guide participants into their role as productive citizenry.

The Rebuilding Lives Project affords unemployed participants the opportunity to gain carpentry and construction skills through its Preservation and Trash Out Service, as they practice and prepare for operating their own business. Participants trash out vacant homes identified in their neighborhoods. Efforts are made to arrange for the completed trashed out house to be rented by individuals identified by The Mission. Multi-cultural and gender diverse teams are used. The funding for this project provides for the preservation and revitalization of 3 vacant homes.

While The Mission opens its services to all areas of Detroit and its residents, for the purposes of the Rebuilding Lives Project, the neighborhoods of Northwest Detroit have been selected as the target community. Participants who mainly live in the NW sector will identify and work on those vacant and poorly maintained houses along high visibility streets, as these properties create an overwhelmingly negative image and decrease the interest in reinvestment in the area. They define the project’s preservation and trash out service delivery area as including: residential neighborhoods below Eight Mile Rd, down to Six Mile (McNichols); and bordered on the East by Greenfield and the West by the Southfield Freeway.

Community member details not available yet.

Direct Impact of Your Project

The Rebuilding Lives Project will target 28 Northwest Detroit residents for participation in this project.

Fifteen (15) adults will participate in Phases I – III, ten (10) youth will participate in Phases II- III, and three (3) Licensed and General Labor Contractors will participate in Phase III, each thereby enriching their lives through learning how to revitalize their neighborhoods through preservation.

Extended Impact on Your Partner Community

It has been The Mission’s experience that families living on blocks where vacant houses are rehabilitated not only are appreciative, but willing to serve “watch” over the houses, and they are of assistance with identifying potential renters who they feel would be a good fit for their neighborhood. With approximately 10-12 houses per block, and an average family of four living in each house, they estimate 120+ indirect supporters from the neighborhoods. (10 homes x 4-families each x 3 different neighborhoods = 120 people.)

Assisting and teaching residents how to revitalize their neighborhoods through preservation and the development of a service business serves as a model to other non-profits who have been challenged by how to provide for neighborhood revitalization in Detroit, as decreases in funding continue to be prevalent. The Mission estimates 10+ community development corporations to be interested in this replicable program model, along with 10+ small businesses (i.e., landscapers, housing builders, absent property owners) and 10+ area churches seeking employment opportunities for the disadvantaged.