Khader Abu Khader with his family in their Detroit home.

DETROIT — Improved city services and better quality of life in the neighborhoods are prompting Arab Americans to buy and rent homes in Detroit. These new Arab Detroiters are benefiting from and contributing to the city’s ongoing recovery.

Despite the promise of Detroit’s neighborhoods, challenges and concerns about safety and blight remain, residents and city officials said.

West Detroit neighborhoods have become a fertile destination for Arab Americans looking for a new residence or real estate investment, partly due to their proximity to Dearborn and Dearborn Heights.

Rabih Haidar, a real estate investor who owns 16 homes on the west side of Detroit, said the neighborhoods have come a long way over the past two years. 

He said he has witnessed a great number of Arab Americans move to Detroit because of low prices, inexpensive rents and the better conditions in the city. 

“These neighborhoods have a huge promise,” he said. “We need people not to be scared. Detroit is a beautiful city with massive potential. Why pay $150,000 for a house in the suburbs when you can buy the same house for $50,000 or less in a nice neighborhood in Detroit?”

In the Aviation Subdivision, which stretches across Tireman Avenue east of Schaefer to the north, Haidar was proudly showing off all the luxurious homes as if they were his own. He bought four houses in that area.

“These are historic homes,” he said. “You will not find houses like that in the suburbs. There are barely any empty homes here. The city is always doing work and homeowners take care of their lawns.” 

However, Haidar acknowledged that it is not all rosy. 

“We need more police presence,” he said. “For the neighborhoods around Warren [Avenue], the closest police precinct is farther than a mile away on Joy Road.”

The Arab American investor explained that additional police patrols would solve multiple problems in the community, including break-ins, illegal bulk dumping and loitering. 

Around Warren Avenue, neighborhood conditions vary by the block sometimes. A well-kept subdivision with no vacancies could be a street down from a rundown block with overgrown grass and several unoccupied properties. 

Across from a lawn covered with trash in front of a partly burned down home in Warrendale, a west Detroit neighborhood, a resident expressed her frustration. 

“This neighborhood is nasty,” she said. “Nobody cleans up. It is a hotbed for crime.”

Two blocks down from that home on Auburn St., however, the neighborhood is almost blight-free.

Haidar explained that vacancies attract more devastation, while progress brings more improvement. He said when a neighborhood is mostly populated, the residents look after each other’s properties.

Haidar, who has been buying homes in Detroit since 2005, urged the city to lower the property tax. He said it would be a good investment to lower the taxes in order to appeal to potential homeowners.

Garbage littered across the lawn of a Warrendale home.

The state of the neighborhoods

Abandoned homes are less numerous throughout west Detroit, but they are still a hurdle in the progress of the neighborhoods.

Marshall Bullock, the manager of District Seven in the Detroit Department of Neighborhoods, which covers the Western side of the city, said his agency is aggressively tackling blight. The department is acquiring ownership of abandoned houses, then tearing down those that can’t be repaired and selling the ones in relatively good shape.

The city does not board up homes, he added. Instead, it provides neighbors with boards and connects them to volunteers who can help them seal the unoccupied properties. 

“When you can find active community groups, that’s another asset,” Bullock said.

Last year, The Detroit Land Bank Authority started suing the owners of rundown homes to acquire the properties and list them in an online auction at BuildingDetroit.org. Bids start at $1,000 and the new owners have to bring the homes up to habitable code within six months.

Bullock explained that as the number of vacancies decreases, additional houses are turned over to the Wayne County because of overdue taxes.  

“Vacancy is fluid,” he said. “We can tear down or sell 100 houses in an area and get 40 the following year.”

The county sells the homes in an auction to recover the taxes. Unsold homes, however, go on the market for $500.

Bullock said investors would buy a $500-house and rent it out without repairing it; hence, the Department of Neighborhoods is trying to convince the county to hand the homes to the Land Bank after the first auction.  

Despite the progress, Bullock acknowledged that there is still work to be done in terms of services. 

“There is a difference between doing good and doing better,” he said. “We’re doing better, but we are not doing a great job.”

Bullock said the city is becoming safer, but there is still a need for greater police presence.

A row of well-kept homes in Warrendale.

Arab Detroiters weigh in on the progress

Fahman Ali Wasel, 30, has bought two homes near Warren and Southfield from the Detroit Land Bank. He said there is a robust Arab American community in the area and more people are moving in.

“Everything is great,” he said. “The neighborhood is safe. We have no complaints.”

Khodor Hamade currently lives with his family in a rental home near Warren Avenue, west of Greenfield Road. But soon he will move into his own house, which is undergoing repairs, a few blocks away.

Hamade bought the new home from the city for about $14,000 in an auction. 

“The area is much safer than it was two years ago,” he said. “There has been a 180-degree turnaround. That’s why I was encouraged to buy. We can’t afford a home in Dearborn. The home here was an opportunity.”

Hamade added that there is a stigma associated with living in Detroit, but it doesn’t bother him. 

“When I told my brother I’m renting a house in Detroit, he gasped,” Hamade said. “Even today, when I tell people I live here, their facial expressions change. People are scared of Detroit. But I’ve been here for years. Nobody has ever harmed me.”

Khader Abu Khader, a Palestinian American handyman who has been living in the city for eight years, said the neighborhoods are getting better.

“The city is trying,” he said. “They are installing new water meters and gas meters. You can see more police cars around.”

Abu Khader said the occupancy level in his neighborhood has increased drastically over the past few years. 

“But there are still a lot of problems,” he added. “The farther you are from the suburbs, things become less safe. I have friends who own homes, but they are having a hard time finding renters.”

Abu Khader said it will take 15 years of improvement for Detroit’s neighborhoods to fully recover.

Growing diversity

“Metro Detroit suffers hyper segregation,” community activist Dawud Walid told The Arab American News last year. He argued that ethnic communities in Southeast Michigan are separated by de facto geographical demarcation lines.

But these lines are blurred in western Detroit, where each block is home to families of several different backgrounds.  

Haidar, the investor, emphasized the growing diversity in the neighborhoods.

“A Yemeni family lives here,” he said pointing to a house in Warrendale while cruising in his brand new Chrysler 200. “A Black family lives here. A White family here. A Lebanese family here. A Latino family here.”

Haidar said the presence of multiple ethnic groups in each neighborhood automatically reduces hostilities. 

Mohammad Amri, a recent immigrant from Yemen who bought a house from the Land Bank last year, said he was partly drawn to Detroit because of the growing Arab presence.

“This an area with a great future,” he said. “I have only been here for a year and half, so I was happy live among Arab Americans.”

Mona Ali, the deputy manager of District Seven in the Department of Neighborhoods, said the city is a welcoming place for everybody. She added that it would help if there were greater involvement and collaboration between the different ethnic and religious groups. 

Ali said the city is distributing multilingual flyers and reaching out to the mosques and Arab American organizations to encourage community members to take advantage of the Land Bank auctions. 

“Everybody seems very interested,” she said. “It’s a good opportunity for them to get involved and it’s being received well.”