DETROIT – A single mom of two on the west side of Detroit is having a trash problem.
She lives across from the Davison Yard, which is where some city employees work.
She claims to have seen them littering and says it often ends with her cleaning it up.
Darrielle Stinson bought her home from the Detroit Land Bank two years ago, and she’s been trying to fix it up the best she can ever since.
The problem she’s running into as of late is keeping the alleyway next to her house clean. Stinson said it seems to be directly correlated to all the city employees who park their cars on her street.
“I see city employees loitering, throwing trash out of their vehicles,” said Stinson.
It’s not just any city employees Stinson says she has seen leaving litter on and near her property just off Davison as she says it’s members of the General Services Department.
She says it’s the very people who (as it reads on the city’s website) help keep Detroit beautiful.
“It’s very inconvenient for me because I have me and my sons out here cleaning up the alleyway with no help from the city,” Stinson said.
The city did handle clean-up a few weeks ago when an employee drove over Stinson’s lawn bags.
Stinson says GSD trucks have also blocked the bus stop forcing people into the street.
But when she saw a security guard toss beer empties at 6 a.m. Sunday (July 31), it was the last straw.
“I confronted him,” Stinson said. “I said, ‘why are you throwing trash over there? I would have rather you used my garbage can instead of the alley, and then I have to turn around to clean it up.’ He proceeded to go ahead and pick the beer bottles up that he removed from his vehicle, and he threw them in my garbage can.”
The GSD sees the unfortunate irony here and is already addressing it.
Sometimes things happen, and we do our very best to remediate that type of thing,” said Deputy Director Jamal Harrison, Detroit General Services Department. “We have talked to our staff and made sure that they are aware that this is the City of Detroit. This is a residents home. We want to respect their property as well as the city. And so, we do address these issues when they arise.”
That security guard at the yard, who was not a city employee, was fired for several things, as it turns out, officials say.
The city also says it has recently gotten an influx of new employees in that department, which is a good thing, but parking has been an issue because of it, and it’s addressing that as well.