Guess who just got a $1.5 million check? Former Detroit City Councilwoman, Sheila Cockrel, received a grant to make Detroit, “The most civically active city.” Whatever that means, so who knows what the money will be spent on.

A Brookings Institute study concluded that the Detroit area had the highest concentration of poverty among the 25 most populous metro areas in the nation. 40% of the Detroit population lives below the poverty line. The average household income in Detroit is $25,000 and the average home price is $44,000.

Guess who’s using AirBnB? Drug dealers moving from site to site to keep ahead of law enforcement. One group of Latin men were caught by the DEA in Royal Oak, they had $115,000 in cocaine at their current AirBnB location; that had been shipped from Detroit.

Some Detroiters are highly skilled at “working the system.” The City of Detroit Water Dept. just setup a new fraud detection unit to reduce the rampant water-bill fraud throughout the city. Their first win was a Deli that used a bypass to go around the water meter that cut their bill by $14,000 a year. The new department is also actively collecting past due business balances, bringing in $3 million already.

And finally, in “It is a Darwin move to be anywhere near Detroit” news,

• Three men were just charged in the Detroit execution of former NFL player, Robert Eddins and his friend Ricardo McFarlin over a year ago. Both men were discovered with multiple gunshots in the basement of a home on the city’s west side. The three men, all from southern states, were selling heroin and cocaine.
• A woman arrived home and found the door ajar and the body of a 21-year-old relative in the living room, shot do death.
• A 49-year-old man got out of his car and approached a 54-year old woman that was walking on Detroit’s Schoolcraft Road. He threw her to the ground and raped her. Two motorists stopped to help and one followed the rapist for Detroit police, who arrested him at a gas station. Turns out he is a habitual offender but the judge set bail at $100,000. With 10% down for surety, he can be free to rape or kill witnesses for just $10,000 – he has nothing to lose since he’ll never get out of prison either way.

The post Detroit Realities #645 appeared first on Detroit Desurgence.