DETROIT – The City of Detroit announced Thursday that they would be putting millions of dollars behind a plan to create more affordable housing.
There will be $38 million in Low-Income Housing Tax Credits that will be used to help build 183 new affordable housing apartments through four new developments. Detroit has the most LIHTC awards of any city in Michigan.
City and state officials announced in front of the historic St. Matthew Catholic School on Audubon Road in Detroit’s MorningSide Community. The plan is to turn the vacant building into 46 apartments and the project is receiving $9.8 million of that LIHTC funding from the state’s housing development authority.
There will be $8.9 million awarded over 10 years to a development at Rosa Parks Boulevard and Calumet to replace a vacant lot once part of the Wilbur Wright School campus. A total of 60 units will be built; 40 of them will be affordable housing.
The third development is Greystone Senior Living, and will be on a vacant site on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, west of Cass Avenue.
There will be 49 one and two-bedroom units and four floors. The development is receiving $8.26 million of LIHTC funds over 10 years.
A fourth development will be at Orchard and Santa Clara streets in the heart of Old Redford. Orchard Village Apartments is being co-developed by CHN Housing Partners and Detroit Blight Busters and is receiving $10.8 million in LIHTC. There will be 48 units.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said there is a greater need for affordable housing.
“It is our responsibility as public officials to address that and build affordable housing fast enough that no one is forced out of this city.”
With the LIHTC funding, Duggan is excited about the future.
“One hundred eighty-three new affordable units, half of them will be one-bedroom units would be $475 a month. This is the kind of deep affordability that we need in the city,” Duggan said.
People who live in the MorningSide community, where the St. Matthews development is located, said they had their reservations but are working with the city as the project moves forward.
Eric Dueweke, President of MorningSide Community Organization, said, “If their (neighbors) concerns are met, then I believe this could be a real hit.”
Deborah Phillips also lives in the neighborhood. She said her children used to attend in that same building before it closed in 2008.
“Instead of being an eye sore, we rather do something with it. Affordable housing is good for the people,” Phillips said.