Muskegon Neighborhood Celebrates Revitalization Victory

One of eight blighted homes is now reduced to rubble to make way for a new home.

Residents, city workers and officials attend a cookout sponsored by the City's Community and Neighborhood Services and Inspection's Departments to celebrate a neighborhood's revitalization.

After more than twenty years, residents of Muskegon's Angell Neighborhood (http://www.ci.muskegon.mi.us/Community/Neighborhoods/neighborhood.asp?NID=1) have at least eight reasons to celebrate.

On Wednesday, July 16, 2003 neighbors, City workers and commissioners came together to drink lemonade, eat hamburgers and hot dogs and, most important of all, watch the demolition of a blighted structure. It was the first of eight demolitions to come, and the beginning of "Operation at Long Last."

The eight homes, owned by the Muskegon Housing Commission, were part of an ill-fated rehabilitation effort that ran into trouble. The housing commission had purchased the homes several years ago to create affordable home ownership opportunities low-income families. However, the structures sat vacant and became a long-standing blight on the neighborhood because an unanticipated high concentration of lead-based paint requiring extensive removal/abatement, a shortage of funding, and management problems at the housing commission combined to thwart the plan.

The City of Muskegon's Community and Neighborhood Services Department, the Inspection Department and the Muskegon Housing Commission (an agency separate from the City) combined their resources and energy and received HUD approval to raze the homes. HUD's HOME program will be used to build new affordable homes on four of the eight sites.