Detroit’s affordable housing and neighborhood revitalization work for the last eight years has largely focused on developing streetscapes, parks, commercial corridors and family stabilization. That’s due to millions invested in the Strategic Neighborhood Fund, a public-private investment that is supposed to serve 10 Detroit neighborhoods.
The fund, of $169.4 million from 2013 to 2023, has helped revitalize areas like the Livernois and McNichols commercial corridor that holds a cornucopia of Black-owned businesses and furthered the stronghold of historically Black neighborhoods like Bagley on Detroit’s northwest side. City, state, and federal dollars were used to create the fund and used as leverage to attract major private investments that have now outpaced federal dollars. While many longtime Detroit residents question the City’s reliance on private donors, the federal government is encouraging Detroit to lean on private donors as the likelihood of more federal dollars heading to Detroit is unknown.
Of the $169.4 million within the SNF investment, $72 million is from philanthropic grants, $12.7 million is from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, $69.7 million is from the City of Detroit, and $15 million from the State.
Deputy Secretary Adrianne Todman of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development visited Detroit last week for a media tour of city developments that have received SNF investment. Stops included the Livernois and McNichols areas, Islandview and the Greater Villages neighborhoods.
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