HUD Dep Sec Testifies At Contractor Trial for Rigging $12 Million HOPE VI Bid with Former Detroit Mayor for Project Where I Grew Up.

Detroit Free Press story is HERE.

HOPE VI funding was first approved for this project in 1996. Herman Gardens had 2,000+ units when I lived there; snapshot from Google Map pic below shows only a handful of units at newly named Gardenview Estates have been rebuilt on the site, 16 years after first HUD funding.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog. 

HUD Section 108 Loans in Detroit Have Gone Sour.

Detroit Free Press story is HERE.

..the city will get $33 million in CDBG money but must use more than $8 million of it to repay the [defaulted] loans to HUD.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Off Topic: Wieden+Kennedy Ads for Chrysler Up There with Apple Quality.

Yesterday's Super Bowl ad for Chrysler was a continuation of their "Imported from Detroit" theme, with iconic Clint Eastwood, the director of Detroit area based movie hit from a couple of years ago, Gran Torino. [Anyone else see irony of Clint's Chrysler ad, when GT was a Ford product?].

Frankly when I heard that Fiat had bought Chrysler I didn't have much hope that the company would survive let alone prosper. I think you have to give the marketing campaign from Wieden+Kennedy a big share of the credit for Chrysler's rebound; I put it in same league as Apple spots.

Let's just hope the product itself matches the ad quality. 

YouTube link is HERE and video is pasted below: 

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Downtown Detroit Building, Former HUD Office Location, Sells for $10 Sq.Ft.

WSJ story is HERE.  

For comparison purposes CresaPartners tenant analysis HERE indicates Class B office space in Portland Central Business District goes for nearly $20, with Class A going for more than $25.

Google Map is HERE; Bing map with a more interesting perspective on downtown is HERE if you choose the Bird's Eye view option. 

New owner is Clevland Cavs/Quicken loans Dan Gilbert.

Building has lots of good memories for me as I worked there for two years when I was a nipper just starting at HUD.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Donovan Says HUD Gonna Be a Different Partner in Detroit via Strong Cities Program.

Detroit News story is HERE; generally idea is that Federal agencies will embed staff with select cities, effort is called "strong cities".  HUD PR is HERE.  ["Strong Cities" an oxymoron if you look at cities where program will be operating, no?]

Governor Kitzhaber must be blushing, one part of effort will feature...get ready for it....inter agency Community Solutions Teams. 

Talk about deja vu, all over again: 

When I was working in personnel management for HUD in Detroit in early 1970's. I oversaw the assignment of HUD Detroit staff to local governments under the Intergovernmental Personnel Program and also the assignment of HUD staffer assigned to Seattle back to the staff of Mayor Young in Detroit. 

Then and in later years, IPA program was used often around US to reduce HUD staff counts, and let non essential or dead ended staff get local experience. My recollection is that large percentage of staff never ultimately returned to HUD. I hope program produces better talent with HUD support this time around.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog

Cisneros Failed [Never Got Built] Project in Detroit.

Detroit News story HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

How the Mighty Have Fallen: Population/Density in City of Detroit vs. City of Portland in 2010 and 2000 Census.

Michigan census data was released today.  

Table I created and pasted below shows City of Detroit and City of Portland population/density changes from 2000 to 2010 Census. 

Click to Enlarge

From a former Detroiter, a big, and sad, WOW!

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

That Ain't Right: Detroit Contractor Indicted for Bid Rigging and Fraud at My Former, and Now HOPE VI, Project.

From Crain's Detroit Business story HERE: 

Federal officials allege Ferguson and co-defendants Michael Woodhouse, president of Ferguson-owned XCEL Construction Services Inc., and Calvin Hall, vice president of XCEL, collaborated in preparing and submitting a proposal for XCEL to obtain an $11.7 million contract to act as construction manager for the infrastructure installation phase of Garden View Estates.

After securing the contract in 2007, Ferguson allegedly steered the primary contract to award more than $9 million of demolition, earthwork and utilities work to Ferguson’s Enterprises. He is also accused of recruiting and directing two other Michigan business owners to submit false, inflated bids to ensure that Ferguson’s Enterprises’ bid was lowest for that subcontract.

Co-defendant Shakib Deria, 42, of Troy is charged along with Ferguson with conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act, by making 19 sequential withdrawals of $9,500 each in order to obtain $171,000 in cash from the bank account of another Ferguson company, A&F Environmental/Johnson Construction Services. Deria is a Ferguson's employee and the vice president of the joint-venture company.

Ferguson, a friend and ally of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and Ferguson’s Enterprises are also accused of illegally dumping truckloads of excavated soil, construction debris and other materials from other construction projects at Garden View Estates. Federal officials also allegedly found two pistols in Ferguson’s office during a January 2009 search of his company.

Ferguson has a 2005 criminal conviction for assault with intent to do great bodily harm for pistol-whipping Kennedy Thomas, a former Ferguson’s Enterprises employee.

Project (Google map view) is where I lived for 9 years in 1950's-60's, and was funded as HOPE VI all the way back in 1996, 14 years ago. 

Wikipedia says project originally had 2,144 units, and HOPE VI plan was/is for 833 units.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

BIG News: My Old Public Housing Project in Detroit Gets First NEW Tenants 13 Years After First HOPE VI Grant.

OK, it's big news to ME. ("You can take the kid out of the projects, but you can't take the project out of the kid", etc).

HUD press release is HERE, notes that former resident Judge Mathis was also one of the speakers, and will have street named after him in the development. (I think release indicates that PHA, Detroit Housing Commission, is still in receivership).

Only 96 units of original 2,200 units are in this phase. Eventual full build out will replace only total of 833 units. This is opposite of Portland's New Columbia where density increased with HOPE VI redevelopment. Both were WWII era garden style developments.

I visited project last summer, at that time infrastructure redevelopment was underway.

With former Piston's great Dave Bing as Mayor at opening ceremonies, and NFL Boy's and Girls club on site, only thing missing is some investment from Red Wings and Tigers for project to be first HOPE VI with four sport involvement? (I can see Kaline Blvd and Howe Parkway on the horizon).

Wikipedia on Herman Gardens is HERE.

Originally created and posted on the Oregon Housing Blog.

Off Topic: 7 Kids Attending Summer School Shot Outside my Old Jr. High in Detroit.

Sad commentary about life in my hometown.

Detroit Free Press story HERE.

Updated: Remembering the Recession of 1958.

Time magazine has a page with pictures and stories from that recession HERE.

I wondered when someone would relate our current troubles to a recession that I remember from 50 years ago.

We lived in a public housing project, and my mom worked at a plant near the original Ford factory in Detroit. She got laid off from her job and didn't go back to work for a least a year. (Wikipedia says auto sales fell 31% from prior year).
(Specifics on Detroit recession from TIME are HERE, story says unemployment reached 15.1%).

I was 10 and all that I really remember was standing in long unemployment lines with my mom And for only time I can remember we took the bus and ashamedly came back with bags of surplus commodities, including a cheese brick and terrible tasting powdered eggs.

(On good news side, Explorer I, our first satellite, was launched on January 31st; more importantly for a 10 year old, the film House on Haunted Hill, with Vincent Price, came out).

Sad News for My Home Town and My Home Town Newspaper.

Heard yesterday of rumor that my home town paper, the Detroit Free Press, is going to home delivery for only a few days of the week, Sunday and perhaps a day or two others. [The Detroit News , which I always regarded as second tier, is apparently doing the same].

If there is anything that got me interested in news (and the world around me) it was reading the Free Press in the morning in the public housing project where I grew up. Because of that positive experience, I still read at least two newspapers a day, as well as what I read online (a lot).

The news was especially poignant, since the Free Press had just concluded a year long editorial series on the need for an "urban agenda". A summary of that recommended Urban Agenda appeared just today. (Perhaps because residents depended more on HUD programs, the papers in Detroit always had much better coverage of HUD programs than I see in other papers, including those in Oregon. To be fair, there may have been more scandals, too:).

Following all the recent bad economic news, and the rejection of aid to the automakers, this is a bad time to be a Detroiter, or former Detroiter.