Jimmy Carter Work Project 2005
Rebuilding Community

by Shawn Reeves

Like so many before her, Quienna Spinks left Benton Harbor, Mich., seeking a different life elsewhere. She could not have known then how that life would change or what she would encounter upon her return more than four years later.

Unlike Quienna, some 185 miles away in Detroit, Janis Grant opted to stay in her hometown and fashion a life there with her family. Her life, too, would change dramatically.

With populations of 950,000 and 12,000, respectively, Detroit and Benton Harbor clearly differ in size--but they're linked by several common denominators, including blight and "flight." Residents like Quienna and Janis have seen the effects of both.

A drive through either of the cities' neighborhoods delivers a firsthand encounter with abandoned buildings, mere shells of former homes or businesses, sitting forlornly now on littered lots. Some serve as squatter huts for those seeking a semblance of shelter, others as refuge for drug activity. Still others stand quietly charred, their windows boarded up, feeble, burned-out, empty relics.

For decades, families flocked to both locations seeking work in the fruit fields surrounding Benton Harbor or in the automotive plants that became necessary economic arteries for Detroit. However, when employment opportunities in both cities began to wither, many of those families relocated, leaving behind them dwellings that would go from occupied to substandard and, eventually, in many cases to abandoned.

First it was "white flight," and then the black middle class withdrew, leaving many poor black families whose incomes fell (and fall) well below state and national averages.

According to a report from the Brookings Institution, Detroit lost one-fifth of its population between 1980 and 2000, dipping below 1 million for the first time since 1920. The report goes on to say that "growth in the region during the 1990s occurred far from the core, as nearly every neighborhood in the city and its close-in suburbs lost residents."

These Habitat houses in a neighborhood coined Tri-Centennial Village are part of a larger vision to promote community development.

Not far from both city centers, however, pockets of wealth reside: in the affluent suburbs surrounding Detroit and in St. Joseph, a well-to-do, mostly white community just across the river from Benton Harbor--and corporate home to Whirlpool, which supports Habitat for Humanity locally, but is also a major $25-million donor to Habitat for Humanity International and a lead sponsor for this year's JCWP, sponsoring 10 homes and providing further resources for event activities.

Both cities are overcoming tense racial histories, uniting black and white residents and coupling the resources and compassion of the more fortunate with the need, energy and resolve of the less fortunate.

Quienna Spinks has witnessed both the divide and the coming together. "We're just connected by a bridge, but the distance can be so far," she said, referring metaphorically to her own Benton Harbor and nearby St. Joseph. "On the other hand, it's also the people volunteering from [St. Joseph] who are crying with joy 'cause you're moving into a Habitat house."

	'But when you live in a decent place that you can afford ... it changes your view.' --Quienna Spinks, future Habitat homeowner

Aside from the substandard housing problem these communities share, they also connect with committed residents and local governments who have deemed such a housing climate unacceptable.

"Our No. 1 priority is adequate, decent, affordable housing for families in the city," said Wilce Cooke, Benton Harbor mayor. "We have a great working relationship with Habitat, and Habitat is making a profound impact on the housing here, which for the last 30 or 40 years had deteriorated."

Habitat staff, volunteers and other partners are introducing substantial, lasting change throughout both cities by building solid houses that low-income families can afford.

Those efforts will only intensify this summer as each affiliate co-hosts the Jimmy Carter Work Project June 19-24, in which thousands of Habitat volunteers will join the former president and his wife, Rosalynn, to build dozens of houses. Habitat affiliates across the state of Michigan, and one in Windsor, Ontario, Canada, will participate remotely in the project by dedicating nearly 200 additional Habitat houses that week in their own backyards.

Former President Carter said, "The answer to providing affordable housing in Michigan, and for that matter throughout the world, is not to abandon a community, but where possible to rebuild it."

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