Over the course of the past year, the Kalamazoo County Land Bank led an effort to revitalize a historic, but blighted building in the Edison neighborhood, just southeast of downtown Kalamazoo. This competition, called Fare Games, identified a pair of local food entrepreneurs as the...
Battle Creek's neighborhoods have seen promising progress in recent years, and city officials are hopeful the upward trend will continue into the next decade. From code violations to property values, local neighborhoods have improved for the third consecutive year, indicating a rise out of the foreclosure...
The Michigan Homeowner Assistance Nonprofit Housing Corporation recently announced more than $11.7 million in blight elimination grants to 10 cities and counties across Michigan. “There is a great need for this type of support at the local level,” said Mary Townley, MHA vice president and MSHDA...
Muskegon County has received significant funds in its ongoing effort to fight residential blight. The Michigan Homeowner Assistance Nonprofit Housing Corporation in partnership with the Michigan State Housing Development Authority recently announced that it has awarded a $1.8 million grant to Muskegon County. Muskegon County and the...
In Washington state, two City of Spokane task forces formalizing recommendations this month — the Infill Development Steering Committee and the Mayor's Housing Quality Task Force — are looking at land banks in Michigan, specifically the Genesee County Land Bank, to identify best practices in...
The message from Lenawee Now’s annual “Vision of Lenawee” meeting is that across the county an entrepreneurial spirit, a sense of community and partnership are driving economic development. The non-profit economic and business expansion organization invited a host of speakers Wednesday to Adrian College’s Tobias Center...
Seventy blighted houses, some dens of crime and drug activity, will be an eyesore no longer. A $1.26 million grant will pay for the demolition of up to 70 foreclosed homes across Kalamazoo County, 28 of which have been identified in the City of Kalamazoo, in...
The Calhoun County Land Bank Authority will continue to flight blight in the county by tearing down several vacant properties with grant funding awarded by the state. On September 1, the land bank said it received $3.8 million from the Michigan Homeowner Assistance Nonprofit Housing Corp....
The following is an excerpt: For those that know it best, downtown development is far more an art than a science. Often, it takes little brush strokes along a corridor and the right accents spanning sidewalks and cityscapes for a vibrant picture to come into form. Sometimes, though,...
The following is an excerpt: In the wake of the national foreclosure crisis, Oakland County treasurer Andy Meisner says metro Detroit's real estate situation is a "problem statement" that could be solved by the unique entity known as a land bank. "You have blight," Meisner says. "You...