Justin Golden, BBA ‘02, has partnered with several other U-M alumni to start Greatwater Opportunity Capital, a real estate private equity investment management and development firm focused on providing housing in Detroit’s neighborhoods.

“The program allows students to study across a variety of disciplines and learn on a number of different fronts related to real estate and development,” said Marc Norman, director of real estate initiatives at Taubman College and associate professor of practice in urban and regional planning. 

Since 2017, the city of Detroit, Rocket Community Fund, and United Community Housing Coalition have implemented the Make It Home program, which has offered more than 1,100 occupants of tax foreclosed houses the chance to purchase (or re-purchase) their homes through a one-year 0% interest loan to cover the cost of back taxes.

An important goal of the class was to ensure that the creative prompts and project instructions were clear, manageable and fun. To this end, students gathered “real world” user feedback from Stamps lecturer Emilia White and alumna Sarah Buckius, both of whom are parenting young children at home.

Khalilah Burt Gaston’s original goal for Share the Mic Now: Detroit was to host five conversations; she and her team ended up hosting 26 involving more than 50 women during 10 days in August. Thousands of people viewed the conversation videos on social media and can continue to do so on Facebook.

The public art exhibition, which began in November, features the work of Detroit artists and designers at the Michigan Research Studio/ArcPrep space.

A portion of the SHoP Architects gift will support the development of online teaching materials for Michigan Architecture Prep (ArcPrep), Taubman College’s semester-long program that introduces juniors in the Detroit Public Schools to  architecture and urbanisms.

From the fields of history, anthropology, and political science, four LSA professors explore post-carceral life, the role of protest in democracy, how race influences our perceptions of police violence, and how these tumultuous and terrible months could help us create a better world.

We are seeking to engage a broad range of stakeholders – frontline staff, agency leaders, academics, financial institutions, policymakers, funders, individuals with lived experience of financial hardship, and general members of the community.