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NEIGHBORHOOD FROM PAGE 3
corporations are the one kind of entity putting shovels in the ground. Ernie Zachary, vice president of Detroit-based Zachary & Associates, a community group consulting company, said community development corporations emerged in the 1980s as a way to help neglected urban neighborhoods. “If they offer continuity and a continuum of leadership, they can be effective,” he said. “(Central Detroit Christian) is putting in place enough substance so there is meat on the bone.” In the case of CDC, its roster of businesses ranges from farming operations to multipurpose businesses. These include: Cafe Sonshine is a 2,800-squarefoot soul food restaurant that will have an emphasis on healthy food. Unlike most restaurants of its ilk, it will be pork-free and offer baked chicken and tilapia in addition to the usual standards. It is doing some catering and is expected to open in about a month. Higher Ground has been maintaining lawns and landscaping yards since 2011. Johanon said the business is a success story. Craig Grissom, a former prisoner, bought it from the CDC last year and it employs neighborhood residents. The CDC Farm and Fishery on Second Street has been breeding and growing fish and uses fish waste to fertilize the basil in the CDC’s gardens. However, Johanon recently tweaked the business. It cost $9 a pound to manufacture fish that was selling for $6 a pound — not a workable model. Now the lower level of the building will be a processing center for vegetables and the upper floor will handle a lower volume of aquaponics. Restoration Warehouse is a thrift store. Detroit Remade scavenges used materials and repurposes them to sell. Peaches & Greens is a market and a commercial kitchen. It had its first break-even year last year, said manager Liz Etim. Faith, Hope and Love Productions is CDC’s gardens and orchard.
JM EAGLE FROM PAGE 3
and an attorney for several of the municipal governments and an ex-Eagle employee in the case, said the next trial in March is expected to focus on damages for the plaintiffs who already prevailed, while a third trial for remaining governments has yet to be scheduled. He declined to elaborate on details of the case, however. The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has allowed for PVC and for HDPE or polyethylene pipe to be installed in public water systems, although state regulations generally call for very high pressure tolerance or for thicker walls in water lines of these materials. But Flint is one of several U.S. cities that has not allowed for the specification of
CENTRAL DETROIT CHRISTIAN
A Central Detroit Christian residence before (above) and after volunteers clean it up and give it a fresh coat of paint. Solid Rock Property Management manages CDC’s commercial and residential properties. Shadow of the Almighty Security handles security for the neighborhood’s construction projects. Fit & Fold Laundromat allows customers to flex their muscles with exercise equipment while they do laundry. Etim said Peaches & Greens is mission-driven like much of the CDC. It has a mobile truck that does community outreach delivering food and also does pop-up farmers markets. “The mission is accessibility to fresh produce in the neighborhood,” she said. “We’ve seen a shift in the population here. People have moved out, but with the resurgence in Detroit, we are seeing new faces coming into the shop.” The market’s food truck serves employees in nearby places such as Henry Ford Hospital and New Center Park. There’s an education element at the market with Michigan State University teaching canning and other useful domestic skills. Johanon said CDC bought the large house across from Peaches & Greens for $1,800 and is remodeling it as a community center to be used by Brilliant Detroit, an organization working to help families and their children get on a course for success. For Johanon, it’s all supportive of her social conscience. She grew up in Redford Township and attended Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. She continued her education at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., and John Marshall Law School in Chicago. She ended up working in the Cabrini
Green projects in Chicago before moving to Detroit to tend a Christian teen organization. When it moved to the suburbs, she and a partner, who is no longer involved, started CDC. CDC has 24 staff people and employs another 12-16 through its businesses. It attracts up to 400 volunteers each summer. Over the years, CDC has orchestrated the demolition of homes deemed to be total losses and turned some of the vacant lots into parks with playgrounds, picnic tables and benches. It has built seven exercise pods on smaller plots of land and brought in volunteers to teach residents how to use them. Large flower planters sit on street corners — giving the neighborhood a cared-for vibe. The Kresge Foundation, along with the Skillman Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and Chase Bank, have given six-figure donations over the years, she said. Kresge’s Detroit Program has made grants of $841,000 to CDC since 2010. A grant of $365,000 in 2010 supported the stabilization of the neighborhood through the acquisition, renovation and sale of foreclosed vacant homes. Grants of $366,000 in 2012 and 2013 supported development of the area around Peaches & Greens. Most recently, a $110,000 grant through the Kresge Innovative Projects: Detroit
initiative of the Detroit Program, a small neighborhood grants program for city organizations, supported the transformation of seven vacant lots into neighborhood pocket parks with exercise equipment. George Jacobsen, senior program officer with Kresge’s Detroit Program, said Johanon, as the leader of CDC, has a vision. “She is really good at implementing things, and she is able to do a lot with quite a little,” he said. He added that the foundation looked at 100 applications and narrowed it to a pool of 18 projects. CDC was a shoo-in. “We knew their track record and Lisa’s ability to deliver,” Jacobsen said. “She put together tangible things that funders like to see.” In February 2015, CDC acquired a 30,000-square-foot church building at 1550 Taylor St. to be its headquarters, a preschool similar to Head Start, a facility for youth programs (now housed in the nearby Blessed Sacrament Cathedral), and a housing counseling center for 400 families. It was purchased for $3,000, but is undergoing extensive remodeling. They hope to open it in January. In addition, the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the Michigan
plastic pipe in the past. The city has been proceeding cautiously on Wang’s proposal, and not all of its elected officials were aware of JM Eagle’s court troubles when contacted by Crain’s. “Of course something like that is a factor,” said Flint City Council member Monica Galloway when told earlier this month of the JM Eagle verdict and upcoming second trial. “We’ve seen that sort of history with some of our trash contractor bidders, and we’ve seen issues like that with the (environmental services) contractor that our former emergency manager hired, Veolia (North America Inc., which tested Flint water quality in 2015). “That speaks to quality of product. It sounds easy to just go get something free, but if it’s not reliable, that’s not good. I think the city wants to
know what we’re getting. And there are so many steps you have to take in this process.” Wang could not be reached for comment, and a marketing director for JM Eagle referred requests for comment to a section of the company’s website. There, JM Eagle calls the litigation “scurrilous allegations by the former employee who had been fired for soliciting a kickback,” notes that the allegations involve pipe manufactured between the late 1990s and 2006, and that some states and local governments have declined to participate or backed out of the litigation. “JM Eagle suspects that many other municipal governments would have dropped out, but to do so they would have to hire attorneys and make numerous court filings. For these small cities and municipal water districts, it was easier and cheaper
to simply do nothing,” the company states. “JM Eagle is so highly confident that its pipe will not fail that it has guaranteed it for 50 years, which is unprecedented in the industry.” The lawsuit contends that various management executives at JM Eagle knew since the 1990s that pipe it had sold had failed testing, and that it regularly fell significantly below minimum pressure tolerance thresholds on industry certification labels it had posted on its products. Some communities have alleged pipes exploded within a year of installation. Flint Mayor Karen Weaver said in a statement in late June that the city was reviewing “concerns” from engineers “about the lifespan of the plastic pipes, due to the harsh weather conditions we experience in Michigan.” But it did not elaborate, and city pub-
State Housing Development Authority
and the CDC recently announced a crowdfunding campaign by Patronicity for the project. If the campaign
reaches its goal of raising $50,000 by Sept. 23, the project will win a matching grant with funds from MSHDA and MEDC’s Public Spaces Community Places program. The church, formerly called the Tried Stone Baptist Church, also has a gymnasium and a dental clinic, which Central Detroit Christian hopes will be in business in 2017. An even larger project is the 1929 Casamira apartment building, which was donated to CDC by the Wayne County Probate Court. Restoring it for use as an apartment building will require inventive financing and likely cost $10 million, Johanon said. Plans call for market rate and affordable units. CDC buys most of its properties through Wayne County auctions. According to CDC’s 2015 formal audit, the nonprofit has almost $3.7 million in assets and the same amount in liabilities and equity. The majority of its annual budget, almost $2 million, has gone toward building and improvements. The neighborhood relies on the charter Henry Ford Academy to educate about 400 elementary students, as well as several middle and high school students in the area. The improvements Central Detroit Christian has made have not been based on a steady upward line. It started going through hard times in 2008 when it had 27 vacant houses. By 2009, it had 103 vacant homes. Because the neighborhood is close to three highways (I-75, M-10 and I-94), it made fleeing from the scene of a crime easier. “We got rid of the drug dealers by buying property. Then we actually tripled in size over the Great Recession,” Johanon said, adding that the downturn came later for her neighborhood. “After the recession, with all the work we did, it looked like we did nothing.” Undeterred, CDC picked itself up in recent years, and Johanon feels good progress has been made. “Volunteers and neighbors are starting to see people here have hope. Now people wave and are happy to see you,” said Johanon, who lives in the neighborhood with her husband and children. “People have enough (confidence and trust) that they are contributing to make a difference in the neighborhood. Some of the most unlikely characters are helping. We have not seen this before.” lic relations director Kristin Moore said late last week officials were still weighing the options and aren’t yet ready to give a definitive answer on the JM Eagle plastic pipe offer. At the moment, replacement work will proceed with copper pipes, she said. “We plan to reach out to the leaders of JM Eagle to get feedback and clarity on the issues that have been identified. In the meantime, we will continue to use copper pipes as we move forward with the next phase of the FAST Start initiative,” Weaver said in June, referring to an initiative to target and remove lead pipelines from the water network. “However, we have yet to make a final decision on whether plastic will be used in the future as we work to replace all the lead-tainted pipes in the city of Flint.” Chad Halcom: (313) 446-6796 Twitter: @chadhalcom