DETROIT – Detroit’s housing market is tight, and finding an affordable apartment or home is tough these days, especially for homeless veterans.
More apartments will soon be available with the help of the state and other community organizations.
Plans are underway to repurpose an old historic building on the city’s far west side, the old Saint Mary’s School just off Grand River Avenue.
Like many inner-city Catholic schools, the building next door is closed. The building adjacent is a mere shadow of itself.
About 250 families now call it their parish, and the church saw an opportunity to sell the school building to fund a new housing project.
St. Mary’s of Redford church is nearly 200 years old, and it once was one of the nation’s largest parishes.
St. Mary’s School closed a generation ago, and the dormant classrooms now sit as ransacked messes.
In 2024, the stately old gym and school buildings will still be standing, and while run down, they hold immediate promise.
The church itself remains operating in a much smaller fashion, but Volunteers of America CEO Aubrey Macfarlane and the state’s housing development authority saw the facility and envisioned great possibilities.
“Indeed, the community really needs a renovation here,” said Macfarlane. “We know that the church has invested in doing something with the property, and so is the community.”
Using about a third of roughly a quarter of a billion dollars in state tax credits, they are looking to convert these classrooms into a 61-unit apartment building, with most of the units going to the homeless.
“It will be a combination of veterans or others with significant needs, but we have a special team working with veterans as an organization,” Macfarlane said. “We serve over 1,000 veterans every year, and I think it’ll be a national kind of thing for veterans to gravitate to it here.”
The church sold the school building for the project, and Father Athanasius Fornwalt is gratified.
“It’s the people, beautiful community, and it’s exciting to be a part of that community to watch it growing and getting stronger and providing for people who have needs so they can live this American dream and to flourish as human beings,” said Athanasius.
They intend to make this more of a community-type setting where healthcare facilities and other organizations will offer services. They’re going to use not only the school but also the gymnasium building behind it.
Completion will cost over $100 million, about three years before it’s running.