With New Homes, Town Makes Amends for Its Bias

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{snip} In 1971, a federal judge found that this old manufacturing town [Hamtramck], five miles from downtown Detroit, had deliberately used urban renewal projects throughout the 1950s and ’60s to obliterate black areas from its two square miles, displacing hundreds of families.

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Now, though, in a time of deep recession and a housing slump in one of the most economically depressed states in the country, Hamtramck (pronounced ham-TRAM-eck) is at last fulfilling its legal–and what officials now call moral–obligation to provide affordable housing to the mostly poor families who were dislodged generations ago. {snip}

About 100 houses have been completed for rent or sale, and another 100 are on the way, paid for by a mix of local and state money.

In the last five years, the town began building the new houses, but the project stalled because of the recession. {snip} The homes, mostly two- and three-bedroom models, cost $140,000 to $160,000, and subsidies can reduce the price to $100,000; most rentals are in the $400-a-month range, after government assistance.

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