Thoughts
; •
'
Your
Financial
Problems
Advancing Detr
A
t 38, married and a father of three, I have no interest
in moving into the city of Detroit. I am happy living
in Huntington Woods and providing my children
with a Hillel Day School of Metropolitan Detroit education.
Despite my interest in remaining north of Eight Mile, I still
am a Detroiter and care very deeply about my city and my
region's success.
In fact, every day I go to work, I look
out my office window and see several of
Detroit's most recognizable landmarks:
the Ren Cen, Hart Plaza, the Detroit
River, the Spirit of Detroit.
The Spirit of Detroit is alive, not just
within the 143 square miles of Detroit,
but also among the 200-plus people,
ages 20- to 70-something, who attended
CommunityNEXT's Town Hall forum at
Quicken Loans' impressive and colorful
offices in Campus Martius.
While Quicken Loans' new Detroit
headquarters is impressive, the point of
the Jan. 24 town hall was to engage in
discussion about CommunityNEXT and
how it is positioning Detroit's Jewish community in the cen-
tral city's rebirth. I enjoyed the meeting and meeting people
who choose to make the city of Detroit their home. Some
choose to live in the city for its lifestyle, access to culture and
restaurants. Others choose to live there to be closer to work.
Each chose to live in the city to be chalutzim, or pioneers, and
to be a part of changing the city from within.
A Different Approach
Although the meeting focused on why we should locate our
businesses and our homes in Detroit, I believe the event lost
its focus as to what we can all do to be a part of Detroit's
growth and reinvention. For those not relocating to Detroit,
there is still plenty for us to do for the city. However, unlike
CommunityNEXT's strategy of creating a Jewish Task Force,
we as a community need to join ongoing efforts to jumpstart
our city's economy and to help in its rebirth.
We as a community need to stop working within the agency
model and start learning what initiatives already exist and
get our community involved. For example, through a grant,
Detroit Mayor Dave Bing joined 17 other mayors from cities
around the nation in creating "Cities of Service a multiyear
effort to expand volunteerism in literacy improvement, neigh-
borhood restoration and other areas.
New Detroit, born from the ashes of the 1967 riots, recently
launched "Mission Back To Detroit',' a program to bring peo-
ple originally from Detroit, but now living elsewhere, back to
the region. The Detroit News Hub is working on defining the
right messages to communicate about the city and working
with reporters globally to ensure our story is being told prop-
erly. The Collaborative is a group of business leaders working
to bring people into the city and start a business. The Tri
County Alliance, the legislative branches of the "Big 4," meets
every fall to discuss issues of regional concern.
Beyond The Margins
Instead of creating one strategy for Detroit, we as a Jewish
community must adopt a regional approach — to join corn-
munity initiatives already under way to restore, retool, rebuild
and rebrand our city and region.
Ask
Financial Crisis
Attorney
Ken Gross
about...
go about
settling
redit car d debt?
First, you have to
know how the
credit industry
functions. The
The "Spirit of Detroit" in front of the Coleman A. Young
Municipal Center on Woodward Avenue
While it is great to talk about the good old days and taking
the bus down Woodward to Hudson's or the long weekends
spent in Palmer Park, we must now only look forward. To help
us "believe," we should sign up for the Believe in Detroit cam-
paign and stop being our central city's worst critics.
The Jewish Federation should work closer with the city
of Detroit, Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties as well
as Wayne State University, Business Leaders for Michigan,
Detroit Economic Growth Corporation, Detroit Convention
and Visitors Bureau, the Detroit Chamber and New Economy
Initiative to place a strong network of volunteers to develop
activities of mutual interest and benefit. I will be the first
to stand up and volunteer with Federation in creating those
partnerships and help open doors for our community to take
on a greater role in Detroit and throughout our region.
We also need to work shul-to-shul and agency-to-agency to
help find jobs for those who are looking. We also need to find
others like Qucken Loans' Dan Gilbert, who puts his and his
company's resources into seeing his vision through.
To unify our region will take leadership, including being able
to put differences and biases aside. There are so many people
with plans to make positive changes in this region; we need to
find them and join their efforts, rather than create our own.
Given the state of our economy, we need to throw out
the playbook and chart a new course for leveraging our
region's assets while investing in new opportunities. As the
Jewish community of Metro Detroit, we need to focus on our
strengths, pool resources, lend our support and work together
to help the city of Detroit move forward. Li
Daniel Cherrin is former communications director/press secretary for
the City of Detroit and to former Mayor Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr. He is
redit card people will
mislead you. They will
only offer interest deferral
and reduced payments for
a short term - 6 months
to a year - and they claim
this is the best you can get.
They are not honest. Our
experience is we settle our
client's credit cards in a
range from 15% to 60% of
the amount of the debt -
and on average it comes to
around 35%. The program
is great for some people
who have the income but
want to get rid of the debt.
If you're cash short, other
solutions such as
bankruptcy can be a better
and less costly way to shed
the debt.
The law firm of Thav, Gross,
Steinway and Bennett has been
solving its clients' business,
tax and financial problems for
29 years. Call today for a free
private consultation or email
kengross@thavgross.corn.
0 rrHAv GROSS
888.235.4357 (HELP) or
248.645,1700
For information, visit us online at
thavgyoss.com - fctailccenter.com
now managing director of Fraser Consulting, a Lansing-based public
stopta.xclebteom •
affairs and government relations firm. He is a board member of the
30150 Telegraph. Suite 4-14,
Bingham Farms, MI 48025
Urban League of Southeastern Michigan.
Fe b r
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