Detroit group battling blight for nearly 35 years reflects on past, celebrates future
(CBS DETROIT) - c
Blight Busters has so much history on the city's northwest side. It was birthed out of necessity nearly 35 years ago. It was the driving force behind initiatives like Angel's Night in Detroit, created to combat arson on the days leading up to Halloween.
The group's work has grown because of everyday people committing to an extraordinary cause.
"If you would have looked at this corner [on Lahser and Grand River] 30 years ago, pretty much every building was vacant, boarded up, abandoned," John George, executive director of Blight Busters, said.
Yet, despite the condition of the Old Redford neighborhood three decades ago, George never ditched Detroit.
"I had one of two options: leave or fight and try to make a difference," he said. "When my son was two, and my wife was pregnant with our daughter, Ann, there was an abandoned home behind our house that turned into a crack house. We didn't want to move, but at the same time, we didn't want our children growing up in and around that negative energy."
When George's complaint calls to the city, and police went unanswered, he and two neighbors took matters into their own hands.
"We got together on a Saturday morning. We boarded up the abandoned house. We cut the grass and swept up the glass, basically got a problem house under control," he said.
Thus, Blight Busters, a neighborhood-based, nonprofit housing corporation, was born, demolishing thousands of blighted properties throughout the years while helping hundreds of people become homeowners.
"We had our children to protect," George said. "We had our wives to protect, our property values, for that matter."
In 2023, Blight Busters broke ground on a new development while shouldering another heavy lift, reimagining and rebuilding a space that is set to become a community hub and a place for artists to thrive.
"At the end of the day, we will have 48 units of affordable housing," George said. "We will have a new community center, we will have façade improvement in the business district, we'll have a new arts alley, and this community will have a new energy."
It's new energy for a new era in Detroit that proves with passion and persistence that people can evoke change.
"It's kind of like polishing a rock until you get a diamond. Detroit is really a diamond in the rough," George said. "If we can just get rid of what we don't want, don't need, can't use, and polish up the rest, it's going to be a shining example of what folks can do when they put their petty differences aside and focus on things that create community."