My Detroit house cost more than $500, and that made it easier to buy

Drew Philp wrote an incredible account of his Detroit experience for Buzzfeed called "Why I Bought a House In Detroit for $500." His determination and courage are inspiring. His story has received a ton of praise, and rightfully so. It’s well-written and emotionally gripping. I believe it is an honest account of Philp’s experience. After reading it, though, I felt restless. And not in that fired up “Detroit v. Everybody” way.

Seeing comment after comment of effusive praise for the story, some from family and friends, I wondered if something was wrong with me. I live in Detroit. I love Detroit. I love and admire hardworking, passionate, creative, do-the-impossible Detroiters. I love Philp for what he is doing. I should be pumped that this story of Detroit-style triumph is on Buzzfeed and receiving so much love. And I am! But…

I’m just not that into it. It’s not the story I would want people who are seriously considering a move to Detroit to read. Rather, I would want them to read Philp’s story but to understand its greater context. I don’t want them to think that a heroic effort like his is the standard price of admission to my city.

I respect Philp. I admire him and his efforts. I am grateful to him for sharing his experience and proving what is possible. It’s all love, okay?

A hero in my own mind

It's just not my kind of Detroit story, not anymore. I spent a lot of time gazing upon the Detroit of my imagination from afar. I dreamed of Detroit’s impossible rebirth, one that most people would believe impossible. I dreamed of my role in that rebirth: a prodigal suburban son returns and endures an epic struggle for right in the face of impossible odds.

When I envisioned the perfect Detroiter I wanted to become, the picture looked remarkably like Philp. The Detroit of my imagination at that time bore a striking resemblance to the neighborhood he describes. Desolate, dangerous, desperate, but with lots of heart and people who look out for each other.

If I had read this just three years ago while living a happy (if relatively mundane) life in Chicago, my reaction would have been very different. I was longing for the Detroit life I never had, so I would probably have gone into a frenzy of ecstatic motivation. I would have read long passages out loud to my wife and said, “See! We can do this!” And God bless her romantic heart, she would probably have agreed.

Maybe we’d have gone for it. Maybe I’d have overcome fear, familial resistance, lack of any home improvement knowhow, and all other forms of good sense to plunge headlong into the shittiest house on the most abandoned Detroit block I could find.

Couldn’t resist.

Probably not, though. What’s more likely is that I would have been overwhelmed by the myriad forms of imaginable calamity and given up that dream. And I would have felt like a coward, a high-minded blowhard with no backbone. If I had continued to think of Detroit as a massive sprawl of homogeneous danger and decay with but a few brave souls here and there growing vegetables, I don’t think I could have moved here. It would have been too daunting for me. If the Oregon Trail computer game was real life, I’d have gotten dysentery or typhoid.

A decent proposal

So it wasn’t an authentic, avant-garde hero’s account of overcoming impossible odds that made living in Detroit seem possible to me. It was a straightforward pitch job by a community organization leader from a stable middle class neighborhood in Northwest Detroit.

Many people like me, white people who grew up in the suburbs, tend to have an embarrassing gap in our Detroit knowledge. Honestly, I doubt many of us know more about living in Detroit than your average Texan would. At some point, Detroit became “that scary place.” In addition to the scary Detroit, I had a vague awareness of some outrageous lasting vestiges of the city’s former wealth. I kind of knew about Indian Village’s crazy mansions, Boston Edison’s palatial homes and the grandeur of Palmer Woods. The opulence never seemed attainable to me, no matter how low the prices got.

So lovely.

Hearing about neighborhoods with quiet tree-lined streets and homes that are very nice, yet still moderate enough to be manageable without a maid, this was a revelation. My yokel mind was blown wide open.

My thoughts at the time went something like, “So you’re telling me that I can live in Detroit, in a nice reasonable house, in Detroit, on a block with other people, in a continuously viable neighborhood that borders other viable neighborhoods, IN DETROIT?”

The uncomfortable truth as I see it is that the racial segregation of Southeast Michigan has left most white folks woefully ignorant of the exceedingly “normal” lifestyle many people enjoy in Detroit. And for the most part, black folks don’t seem to be going out of their way to let us know about it. With our not-so-distant history, who could blame them?

We still flirted a bit with the idea of trying to snatch up a few adjacent lots in a harder hit area, working the land, becoming homesteaders. But pragmatism won out.

With my wife and one-year-old son, I moved into Detroit six months ago at a significantly lower degree of difficulty than Philp. We bought one of what he calls the “move-in-ready foreclosures”—technically, ours was a short sale—“pert brick homes in Detroit’s stable and well-populated areas.”

Our neighborhood is Rosedale Park, certainly stable and well-populated by Detroit standards, though it has had its struggles. It bears no resemblance resemble a “mouth full of broken teeth.” That was actually huge part of the appeal. We could not believe our good luck to find a house and neighborhood we like so well at such a bargain in the only city we wanted to live in.

Philp nails the ethical dilemma of such a bargain:

All I could think of were the families once living in these homes and the day the banks and sheriff put them on the street.

Ouch. I know what he means. My wife and I were the first ones to look at the house when the short sale was announced. Our realtor pushed us to move quickly, explained that the opportunity would not last long. The previous owner, a very nice woman was losing her house due to an unexpected and unfortunate life event immediately asked, “Should I start crying now?” Our new neighbors, falling over themselves to talk about all the good work she did in the house and the garden, didn’t ease my carpetbagger fears too much.

I totally relate when Philp says:

I wanted something nobody wanted, something that was impossible. The city is filled with these structures, houses whose yellowy eyes seem to follow you. It would be only one house out of thousands, but I wanted to prove it could be done, prove that this American vision of torment could be built back into a home.

We salivated over the unbelievably beautiful, if rundown homes going for a song, crying out for TLC. Detroit is filled with ugly duckling real estate in almost any size or architectural style you could wish for. How rewarding it must be to restore a structure from the ground up!

Intimidated by the prospect of needing to rebuild everything while also chasing around a toddler, we went with move-in-ready. It’s not perfect, mind you. We had to buy a water heater immediately, and the place still needs a fair amount work to look and feel the way we want, but our house is mostly functional and we have the rest of our lives to work on it.

Philp calls me on the carpet once again…

I also decided I would do it the old-fashioned way, without grants or loans or the foundation money pouring into the city. I would work for everything that went into the house, because not everyone has access to those resources.

We totally got grants and a loan! I am so grateful for that assistance. We had to take a homebuyer education course to qualify for the grants. There also was a lot of paperwork and finger crossing, but I allow that’s not “work” in the traditional bootstraps sense. By all accounts, the granters were eager for applicants. They actually expanded the eligible recipient and neighborhood parameters to get rid of the money, and we count ourselves very fortunate to have qualified.

I also wanted to prove to myself and my family I was a man.

When we got to Michigan, we moved in with my awesome and generous parents for nine months while looking for full-time employment and then the house. It was humbling and definitely an imposition on my folks, but thankfully they were happy to help out. Not all of my family was super-thrilled about our move into Detroit at first, but most have come around or at least put on a smile for our sakes when they visit.

Philp describes the elation he felt after completely rewiring the electricity in his house, a serious achievement. The effort and potential danger of that work are awe-inspiring to me, as I seriously don’t understand electricity. His savvy work and courage were rewarded.

It was the first time I really felt I was bringing something back to life, like performing CPR on a corpse that just took its first greedy gasp of air.

That is truly awesome. The suspense, the house/city/corpse metaphor, it’s all fantastic. It just wasn’t my experience.

How the rest of us live

For many, many people buying homes in Detroit, the lights work on the first day. The water and heat flow freely, too. It might take a couple days to get your cable and internet turned on, but that’s true everywhere, right?

Remember when I mentioned our realtor? There are realtors in Detroit. We called, and then she showed us some houses. We made an offer, got an inspection, and eventually we had a house. No county auction, and we paid more for the house than anyone I know would or could pay for a car. When I people outside Detroit talk about purchasing a home, it sounds remarkably similar.

I do not mean to sugarcoat my Detroit experience or gloss over the challenges. Most of the scary things you might have heard about Detroit are probably true to a degree. Things happen to people. The struggles and difficulties are well documented. Thankfully, the love, faith, scrap, courage, community, and heroism are also becoming better documented.

I’ve only been here six months, but I love it more than ever. The good things you hear about Detroit are true too, also to a degree. It’s an inspiring place to live. But for all the comparisons you might have heard to East Berlin or Mogadishu, please remember that Detroit is still in Michigan. Michigan is still in the United States. They may call our city post apocalyptic, but the world didn’t end here or anywhere else.

And you don’t have to be a hero or a pioneer to live here.

I aspire to become more handy and adventurous with DIY stuff, but I’m glad I didn’t have to build my chimney or wire my electricity. I don’t have to run from zombies when I take my trash out. I don’t need to win three knife fights for the privilege to get on the bus each morning. I get junk mail, because the USPS delivers here too.

I have heard gunshots, but I heard those in Chicago too. People who live in cities tend to hear gunshots at some point, and it is scary. I hope Detroit residents hear them with less frequency in the future. I hear sirens more often now than when I first moved in, which I take as a sign of progress as the police and fire departments try to get on track.

We go for long walks when weather permits, and we always see people. They are our neighbors, and they partake in conspicuously neighborly activities: waving, smiling, chatting, etc. My wife and son participate in the community garden. We have a local farmers’ market. We have two really cool coffee shops close by and several bakeries. I do hope we get more dining options.

Happy to live on "easy mode" sometimes

One of the scary/awesome things for me about moving to Detroit was its wide open employment situation. I kept hearing there was plenty of room for creative people who want to start something new, but not a lot of traditional opportunities. I am not an entrepreneur. I work 9-5 and needed someone to hire me so I can. My wife and I each found employment that works for us without having to start a school or restaurant run by ex-cons. (For the record: I love schools, and I love restaurants run by ex-cons.)

It just wasn’t a requirement for us to reinvent the wheel to live here.

Maybe I’m worried for nothing. Perhaps all Philp’s readers understand that he represents an extreme segment of Detroit’s population, that he beautifully described one energetic and idealistic man’s version of Detroit. I understand there’s not a big market for long form essays about how there is room in Detroit for average folks without the inclination to save a city. And maybe everyone already knows that.

Some fellows in my generation, especially those of us who grew up with privilege, have a tendency to strive for ethereal qualities such as purity, authenticity and originality. I used to crave those things too, and Detroit seemed like just the place to find them. By the time I got here, I realized I didn’t want to be unique. I don’t want to speak for anyone or be anyone’s hero. I just love this city, and I feel so grateful and lucky that I get to live here. I really do.

I don’t want to out-Detroiter anyone. We are all on the same team, even if we don’t agree all the time. I am thrilled that I have the opportunity to ride the wave of positive momentum that has taken hold in this place. I certainly don’t want to “take back” the city, a deplorable thing you hear from time to time. I don’t want to create a new world order or bring radical change to our neighborhood. I moved here because it’s already great.

Before we made the leap, I realized I didn’t want to be a pioneer. I just wanted to do “normal” things like go to work and raise a family. But doing them in Detroit is special. When I stop and think about it, doing normal things here feels extraordinary.

no matter the cage, the bird will sing

At President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993 (from Wikimedia Commons)

It was reported today that Maya Angelou, the first African American female poet laureate in our nation’s history, keynoted Detroit Public Schools’ first Back-to-School Teaching and Learning Symposium.

The Free Press published Dr. Angelou’s speaking fee—$40,000—among other details of the school system’s federally funded professional development budget. The reported attendance for this week’s symposium is 1,800 teachers.

I did not attend the conference, nor do I claim any expertise on the expenditure of the professional development budget ($21 million for the year; $1 million spent on this conference).

I just love that this happened.

I remember when Dr. Angelou spoke at Bill Clinton’s first inauguration in 1993. I only saw it on TV. I was a seven-year-old white boy. I wasn’t then, nor am I now, particularly quick on the uptake when it comes to poetry. Even so, I knew immediately that Dr. Angelou personified something important.

I saw her bring to life something immeasurably good and powerful. This thing lives inside us, and when awoken, makes us believe in something we thought impossible. This thing could not be put into words, except perhaps by her. Fifteen years before so many of us got swept up in hope and change, Dr. Angelou was hope. She was change.

Among the beautiful words (seriously, it’s for the best if you just check out the whole thing) she spoke on that day in 1993 were these:

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need

For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,

Cannot be unlived, and if faced

With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon

The day breaking for you.

Give birth again

To the dream.

Yes. Yes. She said that. She exists. There is precedent. We can move forward from here, no matter how bleak the here might seem.

Dr. Angelou recited a different poem today in Detroit. This one was written for and read at an anniversary party for the United Nations. Suffice it to say, it is also a very good poem. Again, this is a masterpiece and deserves to be read in its entirety. Yet I have hacked this portion:

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet

Whose hands can strike with such abandon

That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living

Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness

That the haughty neck is happy to bow

And the proud back is glad to bend

Out of such chaos, of such contradiction

We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body

Created on this earth, of this earth

Have the power to fashion for this earth

A climate where every man and every woman

Can live freely without sanctimonious piety

Without crippling fear

When we come to it

We must confess that we are the possible

We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world

That is when, and only when

We come to it.

The lady can write. And she can read aloud the things she writes. Today, she read about the power that is inside each of us, the power of each human to give “such healing, irresistible tenderness” to another. She read that, by doing so, the seemingly unreachable soul can be reached. She read aloud how to create the miracle that we are all waiting for.

Detroit’s public school teachers will endure countless challenges with very little in the way of resources or thanks for the next nine months. But today, they got something that is the best.

There is a lot that interests me about this educators’ symposium. It takes place at the Renaissance Center, an iconic symbol of Detroit’s accomplishments and failures. It conjures the ongoing debate of who is to blame for the declining educational achievement in this country and how we should address it. I would love to know more about the how and the why of the skills being stressed in its many workshops.

But Maya Angelou spoke. Maya Angelou spoke to 1,800 teachers at a rate of $22.22 per teacher. Awesome.

Born in Detroit, now living here too!

Early on, everything I learned about the City of Detroit was from someone else’s memory. There were two myths of Detroit, both fundamentally incomplete, and I trusted each without hesitation. There was Old Detroit, whitewashed by nostalgia and unmatched in goodness and prosperity. Then there was New Detroit, which was too painful, too raw, too scary, and you got out when you could.

This much became clear to me from hearing the stories: Detroit was no longer home. It was a thing that happened to you, and you bore the scars forever.

And so I lived in exile from the City I never really knew, one of the millions of oblivious suburban princes in this country. My streetlights always came on at dusk. I never witnessed another human being getting shot, stabbed, or viciously assaulted. I never saw a neighbor’s house burn. I never wondered where my next meal would come from.  People made sure I learned things that would benefit me.

So I learned. I learned to believe that these entitlements and many more were forfeit if I crossed back over 8 Mile Road. It was common knowledge at my school that most of the Boogie Men were a few miles south of me and that I should accept that the City belonged to them now. The cost of privilege, mortgaged to injustice. Opportunity was limitless, and it was everywhere; but it didn’t go back to Detroit.

This pill, so easy to swallow in the beginning, doesn’t stay down anymore. I am not unique. My family was not unique. LOTS of people moved out of Detroit. It was and is a thing that people do, and not just in Detroit. People with the means get to choose where they live in this country, and thank God for that.

We should all run (or cycle!) as fast as we can to the things that inspire us, whatever they are. But here’s the thing. It’s the running away that we can’t afford. Fear can’t win out forever.

There are too many positive stories. There is too much hope. There are too many energized people with ideas that are too good to ignore. There are too many good people who stayed and kept some lights on while they waited for the rest of us to wake up. And despite all that’s been lost, the pulse of what’s good in Detroit is loud and getting louder.

It’s irresistible. I had to jump on the wave I could see building from a few hundred miles away. So after a bit more than 26 years away, I moved back to Detroit this summer. So far, I love it even more than I hoped and imagined I would. It’s scary, exciting, welcoming, beautiful and full of love. There are some of us who never get sick of hearing and talking about Detroit, and this is where I will try to add something to the conversation.