Downtown Development Authority Invests $24M to Create More Affordable Housing

By Rasha Almulaiki

At the Detroit Policy Conference earlier this year, Mayor Mike Duggan announced a new Downtown Development Authority (DDA) fund to invest in more substantial affordable housing units for residents. The $24 million investment works as a tax break, beginning with District Detroit.

The DDA’s decision to provide direct financial support for affordable housing marks an unprecedented move since the authority’s inception in 1976.

“We have a clear vision to create a city, including our downtown, where Detroiters of all income levels can afford to live side by side in the same buildings as people of much higher income,” said Mayor Duggan, who chairs the DDA and appoints board members. “This new fund gives us the ability to make downtown living accessible to Detroiters of all income levels.”

District Detroit is the envisioned epicenter for downtown Detroit, boasting a centralized sports and entertainment sector of Little Caesars Arena, seven theaters, big profit companies such as Google and more. DDA’s timely decision comes while the growing demand for multi-family housing is still high, as seen by the area’s low 5.9 percent vacancy rate (down from 12.1 percent in 2020).

HOW THE DDA LOAN PROGRAM WORKS

Under the DDA program, loans would be made available to development projects if at least 20 percent of the residential units were set aside for families earning between 50 percent and 70 percent of the area median income (AMI). This amounts to an individual household income of between $31,350 and $43,890 or a family of four’s household income of between $44,750 and $62,650.

“What we do is provide loans to help with construction costs and we provide those loans on a the first African American quarterback drafted by an NFL team, when the Chicago Bears picked him in the 13th round in 1949. Taliaferro, who played multiple positions, chose to play instead for the Los Angeles Dons of the All-America Football Conference before eventually playing for the Baltimore Colts (1953) and Philadelphia Eagles (1955).

Willie Thrower, a Michigan State University football standout, was the first Black quarterback to play in the Big Ten Conference in the late 1940s. While Thrower wasn’t drafted by the NFL, he did sign a one-year contract with the Chicago Bears in 1953 as a quarterback.

In 1955. the Green Bay Packers drafted African American Charlie Brackins, making him the first quarterback ever drafted into the NFL from a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) institution. Brackins played collegiately at Prairie View A&M University in Texas.

Over the years, about a dozen HBCU QBs have been drafted by NFL teams, including Doug Williams, James Harris, Matthew Reed, Joe Adams (Grambling State University), Steve McNair (Alcorn A&M University), Joe Gilliam and Eldridge Dickey (Tennessee State University), Parnell Dickinson (Mississippi Valley State), Jay Walker (Howard University), Ja’Juan Seider (Florida A&M University), and Tavaris Jackson (Alabama State University).

Dickey, in 1968, was the first Black quarterback ever drafted in the first round by an American Football League or National Football League

to discard us for we possess no true value or conscious. This type of belief system has even infiltrated the very thinking of some Black and brown police officers. It has become a part of the culture within police departments. It inevitably leads to the disease of self-hate and disgust.

Looking at the merciless, depravity of the senseless beating of Tyre Nichols by five Black police officers, I would ask of them, didn’t you see yourself on the ground?

Didn’t you see your son, brother, father, uncle, granddad, grandchild, cousin, friend bleeding on that ground? Have you forgotten Freddie Gray, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, Rodney King, Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Stephon Clark, Laquan McDonald, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland and too many others we can’t name them all? This goes beyond your training. This goes to your very humanity. In the movie Django Unchained, starring Jamie Foxx as Django, Samuel Jackson as Stephen the Butler, with Leonardo DiCaprio as Calvin Candie the slave master. There is a scene in which such self-hate is brought to the screen. Django rides a horse up to the front door of the Candie plantation. The expression of rage and disdain that Stephen the butler has on his face for Django says it all. You don’t belong up there. You are out of place. He demands to know from his slave master, “what the hell is the nigger doing on a horse?

Who the hell does he think that he is?” His rage explodes even harsher when he is told by his master that he, Stephen, must get a room ready for Django to spend the night in the Big House like white folks. After being ordered to get the room ready, the butler is so outraged, he is even ready to fight Django, even though his master has told him it is ok . The butler has learned down through the years to say everything for the master without the master ever having to say anything for himself. This self-hate has taken root and infects the entire plantation.

W.E.B. DuBois sums it up, “you see yourself through the eyes of those who despise you.” The police officers in Memphis were a part of the so-called “Scorpion Unit” (street crimes operation to restore peace in our neighborhoods), supposedly organized to focus on homicides, assaults, and robberies. The very name scorpion is deadly.

sliding scale basis,” said Kenyetta Hairston-Bridges to executive vice president, economic development and investment services at the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation (DEGC), which supports the DDA. “For example, a development offering units at 50% AMI can apply for a loan of up to 40% of the Hard Construction Cost for its affordable units, with a maximum amount of $200,000 per affordable unit.”

The loan amounts are determined on a sliding scale with larger loans offered to developments that make units available to residents of lower incomes.

District Detroit’s mixed-income residential buildings will be providing low-interest and forgivable loans to developments located in the DDA’s downtown development area wherein at least 20% of the residential units will be reserved for households making between 50% and 70% of the area median income (AMI). This means that an individual living in one of the units would pay rent at $850 monthly compared to a market rate closer to $2,400.

DDA’s funding tool will review annual progress reports from developers to assess progress between a range of 50%70% AMI goals overtime.

Only developments in the DDA’s downtown development area that offered rentals for occupants earning earnings below that threshold would be eligible for the new incentive.

After a 34-year period,

It has a poisonous sting. Scorpions are dangerous. They don’t care who they attack. There are units like this all over the country. Different names but the same game. In Detroit we use to have such units. They were called the Big 4, or Stress (stop the robberies enjoy safe streets), driving around in un-marked cars, plain clothes, big guns plainly designed to intimidate and eliminate. But the streets were not safe for Black people, because they had us under stress and in distress. They killed a number of Black men during their tenure prior to Coleman Young taking office as Detroit’s first Black mayor.

Many of us have fought, marched, lobbied, voted, and paid a price to have Black men and women involved in law enforcement at every level. In many cities Blacks are involved in law enforcement and police departments. After all it was a Black woman Chief of Police in Memphis, who fired the five culprits quickly after this tragedy. She has set a standard. She has shown the police world and our nation what can and should be done when these situations occur. Straight up with the community, not hiding the law breakers and policy forsakers. Her actions let us all know that it does not take six months, a year, or years to deal with the justice so desperately sought by the victim’s family and community. If Black officers can be fired so quickly when the evidence is there so should every white officer when the evidence is there.

Police departments must stop lying and hiding from the truth of the matter at hand. Black people are not stupid. It is clear why police use terms like “stop resisting, open your hands, he grabbed for my gun, when they are preparing to file their reports.” It helps their defense and covers up in some cases their bad acts. One could hear it as the Memphis police officers stood around talking among themselves while Tyre Nichols laid dying without aid on the ground. For good police officers, these phony expressions get in the way of trust and belief in you when your own safety is truly at risk. We know the “now you see it and now you don’t” game. It has been played against Black people down through the centuries all over America. We face more than just a change in police policy. We must have the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. We must have the John Lewis Voting Rights Ad- developers can then apply for a portion of the loan to be forgiven, provided that they maintain Detroit residency in those years.

“The developer has to report every year about the tenant space, said Hairston-Bridges. “Are there Detroiters that we define as Detroiters staying in those units? We define Detroiters as someone who has been living in the city for a minimum of three years.”

ADDRESSING TAX CAPTURE CONCERNS

According to state law, DDA has the authority to take a portion of Detroiters’ property tax money and use it to subsidize developers in the larger downtown area. This has raised concerns about the expected issues higher property values will have on downtown residents and businesses.

Hairston-Bridges said the issue of higher property taxes is a not a direct result of a tax capture and is often misunderstood.

“The tax capture in itself doesn’t drive up property values,” said Hairston-Bridges. “I think that’s a normal market condition when you see values rise, which is a good thing. It’s development that comes into an area, it improves the area and there’s positive trends and property values. By no means should we look at these projects as a displacement because a lot of this is driven by the rental market.” developments the last decade have been in systemic vancement Act voted on and signed into law. Pronunciations of “my heart goes out to the family, let us remember the tragic death of Tyre Nichols, this was too terrible to talk about,” we know all that. Let’s not talk about it. It’s past time to do something to stop it. There must be a change in the culture of American policing. Who does the training of police in America? Who are the recruits for these departments?

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Policing is not just Black and white. Quite frankly, it is blue. It is a group mentality and consciousness involving control, submit, and obey. Too often it is rooted in violence and aggression rather than service and protection. Every run does not require a gun. Batons and tasers are not always required use, particularly if it leads to personal abuse. Where are the units for mental illness and de-escalation of violence? Where are the supervisors to make certain we are provided with cause and care at the scene of such tragedies? It is past time for meaningful accountability of police misconduct. There should be regular evaluations of police officers for both explicit and implicit bias. Not every police officer is bad. Those who are good have a duty and responsibility to help eliminate the abusers and lawbreakers from their ranks, regardless of their color. They should not be rehired. They should be fired, as the Memphis five have been fired along with any others who were part of this unnecessary death.

There should be a national database to track and monitor the behavior of police who break the law just like we track and monitor civilians who break the law. Corporations and businesses must follow through on what they committed to do in the community, towards these changes, following the death of George Floyd. We need you to advocate for change in these policies and support political leaders who support change and equity in the law throughout our nation. If we pass a thousand laws on police reforms but don’t work to pass into our present and future generation a new culture, a new way of thinking and acting, all we are doing is simply waiting on the next death by a 21st century lynching. Policing is what you do with a community, not to a community. Silence on these matters is not golden. It emboldens the twin evils of tyranny and treachery. Whether you like it or not, Black Lives Do and Must Matter. America, you have a problem. Does it matter enough for you to fix it?

The funding is contingent upon a strict timeline with the date of January 1, 2029, at the latest for projects to commence. Upon any delay, the developer will not receive the funding for the proposed projects and the money will be redistributed to other requests/projects.

Hairston-Bridges said most of the projects are expected to break ground between 2024 and 2026.

As it relates to the DDA affordable housing tool, the developers—in the case of District Detroit, Related Olympia Predevelopment Company LLC--- will not receive funds for these projects until the project begins and meets the terms and conditions of “deep affordability” for residents.

Related Olympia Predevelopment Company LCC’s proposed projects in District Detroit include the construction and operation of 10 renovated historic or new projects, including four mixed-income residential buildings, four commercial office buildings and two hotels, along with additional open public and green space.

Here are the District Detroit projects that have been approved for the affordable housing tool:

• 2250 Woodward: $10.9M loan request; $216M total cost

• 408 Temple: $4.0 million loan request; $69 million total cost

• DCI Residential: $8.8 million loan request; $150 million total cost

“My hopes and goal is a true integration of mixed use income buildings,” said Hairston-Bridges. “ Having that deep affordability is exciting for me because [in] a lot of downtowns, you do not see that deep level of affordability.” team. However, he never got the opportunity to play quarterback for the Oakland Raiders. The team made him a wide receiver and punt returner, much to his dismay.

Yet, 1968 was magical for another Black rookie: Marlin “The Magician” Briscoe, who opened the eyes of those who doubted Black quarterbacks’ skills and abilities to lead a pro team. Although Briscoe was drafted in the 14th round by the Denver Broncos as a cornerback, the gifted player, who could play multiple positions, took over as quarterback after the White starter, Steve Tensi, was injured. By stepping in as the new starter, Briscoe, the rookie, became the first African American to play quarterback in the American Football League (AFL).

Despite playing well in the five games he started – 1,589 passing yards, 14 touchdowns, and 308 rushing yards –Briscoe wasn’t allowed to compete for the starting QB job in 1969. He was traded to the Buffalo Bills as a wide receiver. Ironically, the Bills drafted Black quarterback James Harris out of Grambling in 1969, who became the first Black QB “to start” an NFL season. Many of Harris’ incredible passes were caught by Briscoe, who eventually moved on to play for the Miami Dolphins, Detroit Lions, and New England Patriots. Briscoe won two Super Bowls with Miami - as a wide receiver.

Since Briscoe and Harris’ historical firsts, some of the Black quarterbacks who have played in the NFL have included, but are not limited to, Warren Moon, Donovan McNabb, Jeff Blake, Cam

Newton, Dak Prescott, Michael Vick, Daunte Culpepper, Randle Cunningham, Doug Williams, Russell Wilson, Lamar Jackson, Jameis Winston, DeShone Watson, Patrick Mahomes, and Jalen Hurts.

In the Motor City, the Detroit Lions’ Black quarterbacks were Rodney Peete (1989- 1993), Andre Ware (1990 – 1993), Charlie Batch (1998-2001), and Daunte Culpepper (2008-2009).

If the 2022 NFL season indicates how far Black QBs have come, it won’t be long before two other quarterbacks meet on future Super Bowl turfs. At the start of the 2022 season, a record 11 Black quarterbacks were starters in the NFL.

“Historically, due to myths and falsehoods, there was an under-representation of Black quarterbacks,” Troy Vincent, the executive vice president of NFL Football Operations, said in a statement issued Week 1 of the 2022 season. “Today, the NFL is proud of the advancements of these talented men as starting quarterbacks. We look forward to seeing their continued success and accomplishments, not just through this season, but also into the future.”

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COVID Cases on the Rise as New Variant Emerges

By Sherri Kolade

Last year, reports of the pandemic’s “endemic” in sight are, seemingly, a distant memory, at least for now.

While things are somewhat back to normal, Michigan now tops 3 million COVID cases (with nearly 42,000 confirmed and probable deaths) and a new variant of COVID, XBB.1.5, is making its rounds across the nation with numerous health concerns left in its wake.

“People should not be surprised that there is a new variant. The more viruses replicate, the more they mutate,” Dr. Leana Wen told CNN in an interview. “Most mutations do not confer evolutionary advantage and won’t spread further, but some do.”

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan’s MI Blues Perspectives posted that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is “constantly changing” and accumulating mutations in its genetic code over time. Variants will emerge and disappear, and many variants are circulating in the country today.

However, this latest XBB.1.5 variant is in the Omicron family and appears to be the most transmissible form of the virus yet.

Wen said that there are three “key questions” that need to be asked about the new variant and others that could come after it.

“First, is it more contagious? Second, does it cause more serious disease? And third, is it more immune-evasive, meaning it undercuts the protection of existing vaccines and treatments?

“The mutations XBB.1.5 has acquired have made it more contagious. A more transmissible strain has the evolutionary advantage that it will spread faster than others, and therefore could displace other strains. This is a trend seen throughout the coronavirus pandemic — new even more transmissible strains replacing their predecessors and becoming dominant.”

The good news is that this strain doesn’t always appear to cause more severe disease thus far. It, like other Omicron descendants, is likely to cause less severe illness than the Delta variants that preceded Omicron, she added.

In general, as the virus that causes COVID-19 continues to change and mutate, infections are becoming less severe over time.

However, the virus circulating is still capable of causing severe illness including hospitalization and death. Additionally, the long-term impacts from COVID infections are still being studied.

As the XBB.1.5 variant is more transmissible, health experts anticipate that COVID case rates will increase, and, as a result, death rates may also increase, Blue Cross noted.

Keeping up to date with COVID vaccinations is the most effective protection from serious illness, hospitalization and death caused by COVID-19. Completing the first series of vaccinations for COVID-19, followed by the current booster schedule as recommended by the CDC, is essential. Newly released bivalent boosters protect against original strains of the virus as well as the Omicron variant.

Updated bivalent booster shots are available for everyone aged five years and older. For children aged 6 months to four years who had the Moderna vaccine as their primary series, a booster dose is available two months after their last shot.

Use the CDC’s online tool to find out when you need a booster, and which type of booster best fits your status.