Wyandotte Community Alliance

DAVE GORGON

Nearly four decades of restoring homes and providing affordable housing have come to an end, but the efforts of the Wyandotte Community Alliance will live on throughout the community.

The nonprofit group had served the city since 1984. The organization’s main job was to restore homes in Wyandotte, provide affordable housing for those interested in purchasing a home in the city, adding the property back to the city’s tax rolls and, ultimately, upgrading neighborhoods.

According to alliance facilitator Corki Benson, due to retirements, relocations and deaths, the original group ceased operations in the late 1990s after completing 14 projects.

In 2005, with the help of then-Mayor James DeSana, a new team was formed to take up the mission, Benson reported. In October 2006, the new group restored its first property in the 1200 block of

Lincoln.

The alliance went on to complete 10 projects in all on 10 different streets, including the Burns House at 2624 Biddle in 2007 and the Labadie House at 303 Maple in 2010. The alliance also donated funds in 2013 to Blessings in a Backpack, a national program that

Continued from page 1 provides lunches to students during the school year. The last restoration took place in the 500 block of Poplar in November 2021.

Alliance member Margaret Loya said if homes had not been rehabilitated, they likely would have been demolished. Member Mark Kowalewski, a long-time former city engineer, said some of the homes were built in the 1800s.

Since 2006, the re-established alliance spent about $1.2 million to refurbish or restore city homes. Alliance members took on different roles to get the projects started and completed. Jobs ranged from physical labor to seeking bids on the various work that needed to be done to buying furniture. They said it was often difficult to find those in the building trades to complete tasks. Even current Mayor Rob DeSana pitched in.

As alliance members were aging and moving on to other opportunities, they decided it was time to “wind down operations and celebrate all accomplishments of this team,” Benson said.

“We are extremely pleased with all of our hard work and dedication,” Benson said. “We appreciate the chance to serve and especially the opportunity to enhance our Wyandotte neighborhoods.”

The alliance bylaws require that the organization disperse any remaining funds, which totaled $241,000 in bank accounts at the time it ceased operations.

The group designated funds be dispersed in three ways:

● A total of $100,000 was returned to the city of Wyandotte, which had provided initial funding for the nonprofit alliance. The funds have been added to the city’s capital improvement fund to be used by the Beautification Committee, Recreation Department and/or Shipyard Monument.

● Another $120,000 has been donated to the Wyandotte Scholarship Fund to be used to provide scholarship opportunities for Wyandotte residents that choose to attend trade school after graduating from high school.

● The balance, approximately $21,000, was donated to the Downriver Council for the Arts, located at 81 Chestnut Street in the James R. DeSana Center for Arts and Culture. Members of the Wyandotte Community Alliance attended a City Council meeting on April 24 to present ceremonial checks to city officials, to report on the success of the group and to state where the remaining funds would be transferred.

Elected officials thanked the alliance members for their years of service, adding that they had done “some amazing work.”