Detroit coalition offers cash to boost population
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Downtown Detroit's skyline, from Belle Isle. Photo: Jim West/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
A new coalition, chaired by billionaire Dan Gilbert and supported by Mayor Mary Sheffield, is offering financial incentives and marketing the city in order to grow its population.
Why it matters: After decades of steep population loss, Detroit is gaining residents again.
- Civic leaders want to build on that momentum to fill out the city with interested newcomers while retaining current residents considering leaving.
State of play: The nonprofit Move Detroit Coalition has signed on dozens of partners, including local companies, nonprofits and universities. It is launching several programs:
💰 "Make Detroit Home" is offering $500,000 in total financial assistance to 313 applicants who want to stay or move into the city. It'll help with business creation, down payments, home renovations or relocation costs.
🗣️ The Neighborhood Ambassador Program seeks 100 volunteers nominated as trusted leaders by their neighbors, per a news release.
- They'll be tasked with providing feedback and participating in the coalition to make sure it's marketing the city in an authentic way — and ensuring its initiatives reflect longtime residents and culture.
- Participants will also get tickets to future events and other programming.
Zoom in: The coalition's CEO is Hilary Doe, the former Michigan chief growth officer charged with reversing lagging population growth.
- Her personal tale mirrors a big governmental goal: getting native Michiganders who left to return. She grew up in Monroe County, moved to Brooklyn for a decade, and came back in 2018 to raise her kids in Detroit's Indian Village neighborhood.
- After leaving the growth officer post last year, she founded the nonprofit Michigan Institute for Growth and Opportunity, which she's continuing to oversee while serving as coalition CEO.
What they're saying: "... One of the primary areas we're focused on is speaking to Detroiters who may have chosen to leave over the last handful of decades," Doe tells Axios.
- She adds that it's important to make the effort "holistic," thinking about resident retention, transit and affordability — not just offering a solitary marketing or talent incentive program.
The intrigue: Gilbert, founder and chairman of Rocket Companies, says he'll match what the coalition raises in its first year. Doe says the fundraising goal for the year is $10 million.
- The big question, Gilbert said at a Thursday launch event, is how to retain and attract not just a couple hundred people, but "thousands and thousands."
- "This only works if we do it together."