One
House
At A Ti me
Effort to board up abandoned
homes seeks support.
Allan Nahajewski I Contributing Writer
B
arry Ross is an activist. And
the thought of the children of
Detroit walking past aban-
doned houses on the way to
school was too much or him.
So he took action. He partnered with
the founder of the New Marcus Garvey
Movement, Minister Malik Shabazz (not
to be confused with anti-Semite Malik
Zulu Shabazz), to pull together seven
community-minded organizations in
the city to form the Greater Detroit Res-
toration Coalition Project. The groups
have the people and the motivation
to commit to boarding up abandoned
homes to create a safer environment
for children.
What they don't have is the funds to
buy the hammers, boards and nails.
"I'm working within the framework of
the mayor's office," Ross says. "When I
asked the city for a truck to help trans-
port the volunteers and materials, I was
told, 'Barry, we don't have a nail to give
you — not one nail. -
A Man on a Mission
He is quick to point out that this is a
community effort — not a one-person
crusade. But he is the one who pulled
the coalition together.
Ross, 60, is a junior partner in
Serman's Clothes on Randolph Street
in Downtown Detroit. His grandfather
opened the store 95 years ago. He
says his social activism took shape
just within the past few years.
"I would watch the local news on
TV every night and be constantly
reminded of the extreme levels of vio-
lence in the city. I said to myself, 'It's
not getting any better.' That's when I
decided I was going to start an orga-
nization, the Detroit Coalition Against
Violence," he says.
Ross met with families of murder
victims and led marches through the
neighborhoods, ending up at the site
of the murder to hold a candlelight
prayer vigil.
"I did a few of those, and things
started escalating," Ross says. "I held
The Coalition
The initiative to board
up Detroit's abandoned
homes is an effort of seven
organizations that have joined
together to form the Greater
Detroit Restoration Coalition
Project:
■ The Detroit Coalition
Against Violence
■ The New Marcus Garvey
Movement
■ It Takes a Village Y'all
■ True Oracles of God
Ministries
to
garner support from
the Jewish community
in an effort to board
up abandoned homes
in Detroit.
a rally in the Eastern Market against
violence and started supporting other
organizations that I felt had value,
like the Detroit 300, which in its early
days helped find serial rapists and
murderers by knocking on doors in
the community, rattling the cages and
shaking out the offenders."
Last October, Ross got involved in
a collaborative neighborhood patrol
with two other community groups —
the New Marcus Garvey Movement
and It Takes a Village Y'all.
"We helped provide extra security
after DTE shut down power in some
3,500 homes on the north end of
the city," Ross says. "As I was driv-
ing through the neighborhoods, I
had noticed there were literally 800
abandoned homes within a 5-square-
mile area — houses with doors taken
off, all the windows out, half a side of
a home standing, edifices from fires,
and nothing was being done about it.
"I realized that children would walk
to school past these dwellings where
sexual predators were lurking, where
■ Youthville
■ The Better Detroit Youth
Movement
■ The Concerned Citizens
Federation
drug trafficking was going on, where
squatters were living. I decided I had
to do something about that."
Community-wide Initiative
The first step was to pull together
the coalition of seven organizations
to provide the volunteers. In the first
three-and-a-half weeks of the initia-
tive, the group boarded up seven
homes with Ross providing the fund-
ing for the first few projects.
"We're growing, we're learning, and
our goal is to board up the more than
80,000 abandoned homes in the city
of Detroit," Ross says. "Some of the
homes are structurally unsafe. We're
going to find out which ones are safe,
and our goal is do as many of these
homes as possible. When children
walk past these houses, it's difficult
for them to try to keep an upbeat atti-
tude. The environment just promotes
a negative sentiment. We want to
change that."
It takes the volunteers about 90
minutes to board up a house.
The coalition realizes that board-
ing up the abandoned homes is just a
first step.
"Once we finish a street or a neigh-
borhood, we plan to form a commit-
tee to get citizens re-engaged in their
neighborhoods, keeping the streets
clean, rehabbing houses and getting
people to move back in," Ross says.
"There's so much hopelessness and
despair in the city, so we need some-
thing. We are totally nonprofit. This is
an act of love. Young people are vol-
unteering to put up the boards on the
homes, so our labor is practically free.
The seven groups are pooling their
resources to try to make a difference in
this city."
Ross believes his greatest value to
the project is to unite the organizations
behind a single mission.
"So often, groups can have trouble
working together," he says. "Me being
a Jewish guy working with all these
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