Former Detroit 'Tent City' Residents Placed In New Homes
DETROIT (WWJ) - Nearly a dozen homeless people who moved out of Detroit's "tent city" earlier this year now have new places to call home.
"It's the first time I've ever had my own place," said Brittney Schuholz who, back in January, braved subzero temperatures while camped out in a park near downtown with other homeless Detroiters. "It's weird to wake up in my own place; it's weird to have the keys to my own place."
Schuholz told WWJ's Vickie Thomas she's working part-time now and loves her apartment on West Willis.
[Homeless Raise Tent City In Shadow Of Downtown Detroit]
How is former tent city resident Kevin Calvin liking his new place in Midtown?
"I'm just still overwhelmed to be truthful," he told Thomas. "God would never give you too much you can't handle, but even when I was in the tent city I was focused...but I was just in a bad situation."
Mark Leipsitz, of Shelborne Development — which owns about 1,000 housing units in Detroit — helped make it happen.
"The tent city was right by our offices...." Leipsitz said. "It's probably not good for your self-pride of yourself, and now you can come home and you're living in a nice, clean apartment."
Armeca Crawford of KMG Prestige Property Management is also among those working with the new residents.
"I was able to hear the stories and the dreams and what they could aspire to if only they were given only a chance," Crawford said.
The new tenants have been connected with social service agencies that will offer a further hand up... "So they can be trained to go back to work or work through their problems; but, in the meantime, they have a warm, safe place to live," Leipsitz said.
The tents popped up along Jefferson Ave. several months ago. The site is close to churches that offer food and other necessities and near freeways where some of the homeless have been known seek handouts from motorists.