My Block Club (it’s a Detroit thing, similar to “neighborhood watch”) recently purchased three vacant lots from our city.

Originally, we were planning to apply for a grant to do beautification projects in our community. If rewarded, we could have gotten up to $15,000; but we would have only been able to lease land for three months. On the other hand, purchasing land would automatically remove us from the pool of grant applications, but we would own land in our neighborhood. As the block club president, it is my responsibility to hold these conversations with my neighbors.

After some consideration (and analyzing the long term goal of our community), we made an executive decision that purchasing land would be a better option. As long time residents (homeowners and renters), we would hold more stake in our community by investing in it.

We have decided to turn the land into a community space/park for neighbors to gather, sit, pick flowers and enjoy.