#writeahouse

I’ve been telling this joke a bit too much these last couple of months, not because it’s particularly funny or that it’s only relatable to the perpetually (but ever increasing) unsatisfied types, but it does hit a little too close to home for me: Detroiter hate it here, Brooklyners hate it there, neither can see themselves living anywhere else and everyone’s always drunk. I also joke that maybe my friends really don’t want me around? Maybe it’s the well-meaning friends with different opinions who are unintentionally pushing their own neurosis’ on me when I ask for advice. Let me count the ways:

A. wants me to get the fuck out of this country right now because we as a nation, have economically, militarily and spiritually peaked and that we’re on the brink of a complete meltdown and the Russians are about to invade any minute now, starting right in my backyard apparently. Can’t get a damn word in when where on the phone with her, but anyway…

There’s M. and her angry, tipsy, self-destructive habits that are usually tolerated at the local VFW halls where all the regulars hear of her “getting the fuck out of Detroit,” but her “over qualifications” get in the way and the only thing available for her PhD filled resume are low paying adjunct positions in the Carolinas and how her own tenure track at the local Jesuit university barely keeps her above poverty, etc.

E. flat out called me a stupid ass for even thinking about leaving my house for an overpriced flat in a sketchier part of Queens with, god forbid, roommates.

Z. is miserable no matter where he is and doesn’t care where I end up, but why would I want to go back to New York of all places?

K. feels the same way and it seems like he’s been content with never leaving his $2000 something apartment way out in Brownsville since he moved there several years ago and has been planning his escape back to New England ever since he got his very worthless MFA in sculpture from Pratt even before I met him.

I’ve touched on all this before, but clearly this has been on my mind a lot lately.

The grass is never greener; it all depends on how you water and take care of your lawn. I hate these dad like clichés as they make me sound like a total cheese ball, but it’s kind of true. A city doesn’t revolve around your own needs; you have to make it the best for yourself. But what if a city can’t provide you a living wage job? There’s always someone willing to work a lot cheaper and the next thing you know, a trucking job to move auto parts around town is only going to pay you $9 an hour if you’re lucky –I’m still annoyed about that interview when I asked to start at $17/hr when in fact, it topped off at $15. Fuck that noise. Unfortunately, someone else out there is more than happy to take that because they need to feed their family.

What if you move her from an expensive costal city on the lure of cheap housing so you can focus on your studio work or novel, only to find out that there’s a lack of social infrastructure to support the arts around here? A recent date found this out the hard way after she won a house last year –like literally won a goddamn house from an essay contest, one of those rare, only unique to Detroit non-profit organizations that I have a ton of respect for. Her release party is next week and not a single local media outlet reached out to her to promote it. Plenty of interviews with NYC and LA papers, sometime with a Chicago NPR affiliate, but not even a peep from anywhere around here. I’d talk more about this person, but it was only a 45 minute long Tinder date and at the risk of being a creep who doesn’t know his boundaries, I’ll keep the rest of this anonymous.

Live in Detroit – FREE Homes for Writers/Poets

What a wonderful gesture towards creatives. It would be nice to see initiatives like these in other areas parts of the world too.

http://www.writeahouse.org/

Free Homes for Writers!

I received an email today from the folks at Write A House.  While my writing has taken a back seat to social media recently, I still love the Write A House program and would love to see more writers take advantage of this.  If you’re a writer and interested in a free house just for being a good neighbor, check this out!

[Tweet “Write A House is a twist on the “Writer’s Residency.” In this case,…

Making It Write

Bankrupt Motor City may have found the answer to urban blight, while restructuring brand rules.  Wanna rebuild your city's brand image? Give away houses.

Write-A-House, a new Detroit-based non-profit, has started an Indigogo campaign to raise funds that will go to restoring homes for working, "low income" writers. Through an application process, Write-A-House hopes to attract writers both locally and from around the world, to spend two years in residency leasing the homes from the non-profit, striving for the end-goal of ownership at the end of their tenure. Call it crowdfunding for the community, the idea is to bring other nonprofits together (like local Young Detroit Builders), to all pitch in and reinvest in neighborhoods, one house at a time.

As a former resident of Detroit (thanks to a job relocation, the city got two years, 10 months and four days of my life -- yeah, I counted), I am very familiar with the scores of perfectly good but abandoned boarded up, empty properties that dotted almost every block, regardless of neighborhood.  I heard stories of people who paid just tax and water bills on houses to secure ownership, but I never knew if those tales were true, and if so, why the whole city hadn't jumped on that was a mystery. So, this idea of an artists' enclave, a writer's colony, is an amazing one, that will not only clean up the visual brand of dear Detroit, but uplift the literary quotient and add to the intellectual treasure of the city, as well.  My hope is that the writers who arrive to call Detroit their home will start publications and cultural ventures that help document the journey back; that their influence and dedication and pride in the dream of home ownership will translate into a larger groundswell for rejuvenating the pulse of the city. It's rebranding at its' best, if it works.  My fingers are crossed.

(From an Huffington Post article.)