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All photos by Steve Jessmore

If you’ve been on Ebay you’ll no doubt find some bargains, including this three bedroom Flint home for $600 bucks. Today Flint Congressman Dale Kildee announced a $2.8 million HUD grant. Quick number crunching means that could buy 4,666 of these homes!

Here’s the press release:

Kildee Announces Nearly $2.8 Million in Housing Grants for Genesee County

CDBG and Home grants will help revitalize neighborhoods, expand affordable housing

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Congressman Dale E. Kildee (D-MI) today announced $2,764,797 in funding for Genesee County through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).  The County has been awarded $1,925,896 in Community Development Block Grants (CDBG) and $838,901 in HOME grants, both of which work primarily to provide decent housing to low income individuals. “This is very good news for our area and for families in Genesee County.  This funding will help revitalize our communities and ensure that families, regardless of income, are able to obtain decent, affordable housing,” said Congressman Kildee. The HOME program funds a wide range of activities that build, buy, and/or rehabilitate affordable housing for rent or homeownership or provide direct rental assistance to low-income people. CDBG funds a wide range of programs, focusing primarily on the rehabilitation of affordable housing and the construction and improvement of public facilities. These projects also provide economic opportunities for local residents.

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ATTENTION: FLINT MICHIGAN, USA IS CURRENTLY UNDERGOING A TERRORIST ATTACK. AT LEAST EIGHT COORDINATED FIREBOMBING ATTACKS HAVE OCCURRED AND THE MAYOR IS WARNING ALL RESIDENTS TO REMAIN ALERT. PLEASE CONTACT THE FBI 1 (800) CALL-FBI WITH ANY TIPS OR LEADS.

Flint Mayor Dayne Walling states fires were ‘premeditated attack’ on community.

There is a working class, blue-collar bar I visit often in Flint called Jesters. To outsiders it might appear as a rough and tumble place, with an unsual mix of bikers, pool sharks, white folks, single moms, gangsters, old folks, black folks, autoworkers, young folks, latin folks, and everything in between. A true melting pot, defying its label as an economically segregated city. The people watching in here doesn’t get any better.

Located just inside the city limits of Burton – which is even poorer then Flint – people come to forget. With 25% unemployment, the highest crime rates in the nation, and a fleeing population, you have to wonder how smiles can possibly happen. And yet they do. You see people struggling. People are out of work. Some are working. Many are making ends meet. Others live on the edge. A sudden, costly car repair, for example, can rapidly spin out of control into a black hole of financial despair of which there is no way out. I’ve seen it firsthand, countless times.

My heart goes out to the people of Flint who did nothing to bring this economic devastation onto themselves. And they have enough to worry about without the problems of the world creeping in. Even global tragedies pale in consideration to the view outside their own front window. I’m reminded of the kids at Southwestern High School in Fahrenheit 9/11 that when viewing bombed-out Bahgdad, comment “There are parts of Flint that look like that!”

And now I get word that Jesters, this past Sunday, held a fundraiser. Not for its own townspeople, who could use a hand, but to help the victims of the earthquake in Haiti. I’d wager a significant amount that few people in Flint have ever set eyes on a Haitian in their entire life. Now, consider the result:

They raised over four thousand dollars for Haiti.

This in a town where one can purchase 50 homes for $60k (that’s $1,200 per home), where a dinner for four costs $24, and car dealers sell used cars with an internal mechanism that disables the car when you get behind on a payment – where ever you are.

You get the idea of the significance of this event, this amount of money, and how out of proportion it is for Flint.

Four thousand dollars.

Four thousand dollars from what Business Week called “America’s fastest shrinking city.” Four thousand dollars from a town that is not doing better than anyone else. Raising $4,000 is like raising $4 million dollars from a small cocktail party in New York. It’s way more than it should be, and you wonder just where the money can possibly be coming from.

When I heard the figure, I immediately felt like The Grinch, after he boo-hoos the townsfolk for trying to do something worthwhile as he sits on his perch wondering what all the fuss is. Then he sees the joy the event brings, the selflessness, the spirit of giving especially at a time when there is so little to give. And his heart breaks free and grows from two sizes too small, to fifty times its size, bursting all constraints.

To George Zaravelis, the owner of Jesters, and his lovely wife Genie, I cannot fathom how you did it. And the world now has an example of how the people of Flint – beaten down and counted out, still have a few more rounds left.

I have never been more proud of my hometown.

My hometown of Flint, Michigan needs all the help it can get. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is holding a public comment period from now until February 28th, 2010 to talk about cleaning up the Buick City factory lot, which is heavily contaminated. They might have a new business that wants to go in there, but obviously, this new business cannot afford – nor be expected to clean up – a 100 year-old industrial wasteland.

From mlive.com

The site’s cleanup is crucial to creating a truck-to-rail intermodal hub on the site that could create 600 jobs. Officials with the Genesee Regional Chamber of Commerce have said that the developer doesn’t want to take on long-term liability of environmental contamination at the site.

Please visit the special EPA comment website and tell them that Flint needs all the help it can get, and both GM and the U.S. Government certainly owe a debt to the people of Flint who  have sacrificed far more than their fare share. It’ll take you all of 2 minutes, and it will mean a lot to the people of Flint, and to me… thank you!