Regions

The City of Detroit founded in 1701 by the French, General Cadillac established Fort Shelby located at where Fort Street and Shelby cross at the time saw the Detroit River come up all the way to Larned Street.  With the advent of the Automobile and Henry Ford Detroit became The Motor City when he built his first auto plant at Piquette and Beaubien Street in 1905 and in a matter of only a few years over 5,000 automotive related companies were formed.  After WWII a great expansion of the automotive sector took root as those plants converted from wartime production.  Many 1,000’s moved from the south to work at the plants feeding the massive River Rouge Plant near Dearborn and Highland Park for Ford Motor Company, Chrysler in Highland Park, and north in the Flint and Pontiac areas for General Motors.  Most of the neighborhoods in Detroit went up fast, small homes every 30 feet or so, construction mostly wooden frame homes some brick but most wooden. 

With the advent of Expressways introduced after WWII with Highland Park’s Davison Freeway the very first expressway in the country with only 3 miles of roadway later was expanded across the country starting in the late 50’s with great expansions in the 60’s and 70’s.  Many Urban areas like Detroit took some time to condemn areas in the city to build the freeway system.  With that process created divisions of neighborhoods along with the idea of “white flight” out of the neighborhoods started the process of these neighborhoods to break down as many homes became rentals and were not maintained as well as they should have been creating the term “slum lords” making its residents live in substandard housing. 

In the Summer of 1967 in Detroit were riots burning sections of the city and again in 1984 whole sections of the city burned leaving very dangerous living conditions even to include people just moving away leaving a home vacant.  Those who were desperate to include those in the drug scene inhabited those homes who would set a fire in a home to keep warm and in turn burn the house down.  After awhile many neighborhoods were no longer safe, many had few homes on the block one could live in, and those homes were not safe from criminals.  Needless to say now with over 50 square miles of vacant property in the city where there were homes and businesses there are challenges only efforts like Hero’s in the Hood can face and help move things forward.

In the Detroit Region we look to establish 20 sections of the city where each section establishes at least 20 businesses for the kids 12-18, where a community center is established and where the housing and commercial properties restored and an attitude of being a responsible neighbor is restored putting Neighbor back into Hood.  This is a very heavy lift so we are asking for entrepreneurs and interested stakeholders for their help through our League of Entrepreneurial Hero’s around the world for their assistance.  If you can help please fill in the Contact Us form and connect with the league.  We would also covet your prayers as we help these who can hardly help themselves see that they can be loved and with a lot of hard work and faith become productive progressive successful citizens.

PLEASE keep a look out as we will be adding several regions before the end of the year.