There was a time when the American dream called Detroit home. Thousands of people flocked to factory work in what would become known as the Motor City. Now, the headlines read, contracts, strikes and layoffs.

The auto industry in Detroit is much like a car itself — built from the ground up, broken down and repaired, but as a main staple of employment for nearly a quarter of a million people directly, the industry can either drive or drag family finances. Domestic car sales were up by 10 percent in September for the Big Three — General Motors, Chrysler or Ford, but many Detroiters are struggling through the recession, facing a two-tier wage system, strict attendance policies or high unemployment rates. For most of us, the only time we think about GM, Ford or Chrysler is when we go to the dealership to get a car, but to the people who live and breathe it everyday, their view is completely different. Despite all of the struggles autoworkers face in a broken economy, some say they’re not giving up on the American dream. Elyse Mickalonis reports.

Along the curved path of Woodstock Street near the corner of Durham Road, Byna Camden often cruises in her boat-sized, cream-colored Cadillac Eldorado as part of Green Acres radio patrol, keeping watch over the manicured lawns in this diverse, well-off neighborhood on Detroit’s Westside.

To the east lives Shirley Burch, a long-time resident of Dequindre Street. Three blocks away is the street of her childhood, where a charred wooden skeleton of a two-story house sits atop a small plot of twigs and tumbleweeds, its shingles dangling from a sagging roof, the outer wall pried away from the gutter like a shoulder pulled out of its socket.

Both women live on either side of the city along 8 Mile Road, the commercial thoroughfare that cuts across the state of Michigan and divides the city of Detroit from its northern suburbs. They have been here for more than four decades and remember the 20 mile stretch as it once was: a physical separation between the urban blacks and suburban whites; a social barrier to full integration; a psychological stifling of acceptance; a line etched in the sand separating two camps at war.

The women say that today this line is blurred, that the wall to progress has started to crumble beneath the feet of a new generation. But for the Rust Belt city of Detroit—where affluent communities border blighted neighborhoods, where illiteracy pushes 50 percent, where the homicide rate ranks among the nation’s highest, and where residents continue to leave—hope may still be something just out of reach.

Burch, 70, first moved to Lumpkin Street more than 40 years ago when her family left Alabama for Detroit.

But the house Burch grew up in is now burned to the ground.

Shirley Burch in front of her home in Northeast Detroit. Photo by Chelsia Rose Marcius.

“I haven’t been on the street because it brings tears to me,” she said during a recent tour of the neighborhood, her eyes wide as she stared at the feeble structures ahead. “It looks like we’re in a third world country, it doesn’t look like we’re in America. It’s strange to me how you can go from block to block and see such despair. I think it makes people just lose hope, and I don’t know why that should be.”

Yet some Detroiters work to save shuttered homes like the one on Lumpkin. Tami Salisbury, executive director of the 8 Mile Boulevard Association, helps entice prospective contractors to break ground in this area.

“Today it is still 80 percent black to the south and 80 percent white to the north, however, just 20 years ago, that number on both sides was at least 90 percent,” she said. “We formed to bring the community and counties together, coming in collaboratively to diminish the perceptions that people have had about 8 Mile Road, which tend to go away when the physical environment changes.”

Such changes include repurposing abandoned manufacturing plants, cleaning up run-down parking lots, and brainstorming ways to use the barren land of Michigan’s former state fair, development that Salisbury said has brought integration to communities like Green Acres.

Camden, 81, moved to that neighborhood in her 20s when her mother left her home near downtown Detroit for the city’s northern edge. She said that her mother did not want her younger brother Andy to be the only white boy in an all black school.

Byna Camden in front of her house with her poodle Bart in Green Acres, Detroit. Photo by Chelsia Rose Marcius.

“It was predominately white when my mother moved here; I’d venture to say that it’s now 50-50,” Camden said as she greeted neighbors, a mail carrier and passerby along Woodstock Street. “Where I live, I have a black family on either side of me who are lovely, wonderful people. I am a widow and I live alone, and I can tell you for a fact if there’s anything I needed, I could call my neighbor and he would be there in 10 seconds.”

More development might mean greater integration is on the way. Greg Moots of the City Planning Commission said the Shoppes at Gateway Park—a mall complex that is five years in the works—looks to bring in customers from both sides of 8 Mile.

“The goal is to draw consumers from the suburbs and the city, and it is the catalyst to bring development; the new parking lots, the new building is all to prep the site for Meijer,” he said, referring to the Michigan-based discount chain. “Meijer is showing interest in the city of Detroit. I give them credit because other retailers aren’t. They’re showing why it makes economic sense to be here.”

Other efforts to foster improved relationships between city and suburban residents include beefing up regional transportation so that commuters can easily cross from one side of 8 Mile to the other.

The Woodward Light Rail Project is integral to creating that link said Executive Director of Transportation Riders United Megan Owens. She said it could mean the eventual creation of a regional transportation authority and ultimately improved coordination of the suburban and urban public transit systems.

“A third of households in the city of Detroit don’t have a car, and hundreds of thousands rely on friends, neighbors and busses to get to work,” she said. “Transportation is a real challenge in this region, and there is a little bit of the underlying attitude of well, it’s as good as it has to be.”

But Burch and Camden are not among the apathetic in their community.

“A lot of people say I don’t need Detroit—well that’s ridiculous,” Camden said. “I’m a senior senior-citizen, I’ve lived in this community for a number of years, and I still have good feelings about it. I’m not going anywhere; no one is rushing me out. I think Detroit is a good place to be.”

As Burch left behind the ruined homes of Lumpkin Street, she pointed ahead toward a new housing development, bordered by a perimeter of bright white sidewalks and green tree lawns. Stepping out of the passenger door, Burch smiled up at a newly built row of brick facades near 8 Mile Road.

“My friends say Shirley, you’re just a dreamer. You think like a child because you think things can just happen,” she said. “But I believe things can be like Andy of Mayberry, where Detroit can come together and celebrate and embrace our differences. I believe in the dream.”

A flyer hangs in police headquarters advertising the Employee Assistance Program that serves Detroit police officers in need. Photo by Emily Canal

Airforce veteran Erik Cox was in his early 20s and new to the Detroit Police Department when he began to feel troubled. He was baffled by his depression since he had a job in his hometown and was no longer serving in the Persian Gulf. But images from work triggered nightmares, and talking to his friends didn’t help. He couldn’t get over what people were capable of doing to each other. One afternoon he took his service weapon to a vacant lot and planned to shoot himself. He wanted to be sure his death was definite, and wasn’t going to risk a suicide attempt where he could be revived.

“I wasn’t popping pills, I wasn’t going to do nothing like that,” said Cox, 44, now a sergeant with the Detroit police. “Nothing that I could possibly be saved from. It had to be a sure fire way.”

It was then Cox thought about his mother and four sisters, and what they would think if he committed suicide. Cox put the gun down, went home and got help.

But far too many officers do not follow in Cox’s footsteps, and according to a recent study, Detroit has the highest rate of suicide among police officers than any other city in America. Dr. Bengt Arnetz, the director of the Division of Occupational and Environmental Health at Wayne Sate University School of Medicine, said he found 28 per 100,000 officers kill themselves a year. The rate in New York City is 15 per 100,000, 18 in Chicago, and 20 in Los Angeles. Commander of Internal Controls Brian Stair, 43, said more uniformed police officers kill themselves than those who die in the line of duty.

Although Detroit Police Department dispute the statics- placing the figure at nine suicides in the last 10 years – what’s evident is that suicide is a threat to the city’s police force.

Officers said what makes the issue so specific to Detroit is the combination of high crime rates, personal issues and the constant availability of weapons. Homicide has increased by 20 percent this year, according to the Detroit Police Department.

“When they commit suicide they choose to do that, it’s a selfish act on their part,” said Stair, who cited relationship issues as the main reason behind the self-inflicted violence. “Its not a bad guy taking someone’s daddy or mommy away.”

Lt. William Petersen of the Detroit Police Department said disturbing images and pressure, could turn into stresses for officers. He said this leads to bigger problems, like depression and suicide, and readily available guns only adds to the problem.

Lt. William Petersen of the Detroit Police Department admires photos of his family and said her personal life helps keep him calm after a stressful day at work. Photo by Emily Canal

He said most officers shoot themselves in the head or mouth.

“When things reach that point and if the gun wasn’t part of your body or an extension of it, maybe it wouldn’t happen,” Peterson said.

And many officers, like Cox, do not capitalize on the confidential treatment options available.

Before Cox contemplated ending his life, he confided in fellow officers that he was depressed. But Cox said talking to other cops is not beneficial and usually turns into a contest of who has seen worse.

“I learned over time that cops aren’t the best, you should really get professional help,” Cox said. “One of the things we always do is try to outdo each other and talk about the most graphic scenes.”

Sgt. Carrie Schulz, 34, said most officers see the gruesome aspects of the job as a stamp of approval and worry that by voicing their depression they will lose their creditability.

“They are worried about undoing that approval and might not talk about it,” Schulz said. “They don’t want people to think they are chicken, they think it can be career suicide.”

While officers are aware that confiding in partners is not the best method, they still do not seek the help of professionals. Posters advertising the aid of the Employee Assistance Program hang around the various Detroit precincts, but very few call the confidential outlet.

The service offers recommendations and treatments for alcohol and drug abuse, couples counseling, depression or PTSD. But officers must initiate the call and cannot be mandated unless they are asked to attend for anger management or alcohol counseling.

The Detroit Police Department also has a Chaplin Corps, a group that will sit down with officers and discuss any issue. Officer Dwayne Deck is the liaison between police officers and the Chaplin Corps.

“Its good to have them get it off their chest, when you go home, your family doesn’t understand exactly what you’re saying and can’t sympathize with you,” Deck said. “Nine out of 10 times, their spouse isn’t going to understand, but Chaplains do ride-alongs and understand a little bit better than spouses.”

Deck said there are 45 chaplains on staff, but the corps faces the same problem as the Employee Assistance Program, very few utilize the service.

“It kind of bothers me sometimes that I can’t help them,” Deck said. “They don’t take advantage of what we have and some don’t want the Chaplains around.”

Cox said most officers refuse help because they don’t want to look weak and try to uphold the “tough image” that comes with the job.

“There is a perception that we are tough guys and don’t need that type of thing,” Cox said. “That’s why a lot of people don’t ask for that type of assistance.

But Cox eventually did.

“For a year and half I sat on the couch and it helped me to deal with a lot of stuff a lot better,” said Cox, who sought private therapy. “Some of that is hard to forget and when you close your eyes at night and drift off into slumber it has a way of creeping back in.”

Because most officers do not seek professional help, Petersen believes a preventative measure is needed to combat the “macho” outlook many cops uphold. He said by telling students in the police academy what they will see and breaking down the tough ideals, officers could lead healthier personal lives and subsequently lower the rate of suicide.

“Young officers need to be taught that they will encounter those things, not that they probably will, not that they might, but that they will,” Petersen said. “Consequently, they have to be taught how to handle them and should be taught those things right from the beginning.”

Arnetz, who studied police suicides in Sweden, is crafting a study in Detroit that hopes to decrease the suicide rate through preventative mental training. Arnetz hopes to demonstrate that by teaching stress management and emotional regulation during initial training, officers will think clearly and recover quickly from trauma.

“We know they are going to be exposed to trauma and they are prepared tactically,” Dr. Arnetz said. “They are never mentally prepared even though we know they are going to be exposed to violence.”

He surveyed local officers and found the 10 most stressful scenarios they could face on the job. Car chases, bank robberies, dead children and domestic violence ranked the highest. He takes officers through the protocol they are taught, trains them to focus on the task at hand and how to cope with disturbing images.

“Together with police skills we teach the officers to relax and once you mentally relax you can create the scenario in your head,” Arnetz said. “We tell them how to deal emotionally and not get overstressed.”

Cox believes the macho attitude is one of the main factors behind officers refusing to get help. And while he hopes that it can be resolved, he is skeptical that the mentality will dissipate.

“Six friends of mine have committed suicide,” Cox said. “I am tired of counting now.”

Carol Burnett, 38, stands in front of Covenant Care's mobile dentistry unit at Crossroads homeless shelter in southwest Detroit. An unemployed, uninsured mother of four, Burnett lives in the neighborhood and came to Crossroads hoping for help with her teeth, two of which are visibly loose, and a third which has already fallen out. Photo by Meredith Bennett-Smith

Darryl Fountain is soft-spoken, diabetic and good at making car bumpers. At least, he was good at it. Fountain received his pink slip this June, and now as the clock begins to wind down on his unemployment benefits, the 46 year-old has been left scrambling to find a way to manage an expensive and life-threatening disease.

Flanked by his mother and sister-in-law in the grey plastic chairs of the St. Francis Cabrini Clinic waiting room, Fountain speaks so quietly he’s almost impossible to hear. Probably too old, he said, to find further employment in the auto industry, Fountain has a specialized manufacturing skill set and few prospects. Cabrini Clinic, a free primary care clinic located in Southwestern Detroit, has become a lifeline, helping Fountain keep track of his many medications, making sure his prescriptions are filled on time and that his blood sugar is monitored. The risk of death for people with diabetes is about twice that of people without it.

It’s a familiar story—hospitalized twice since losing his job and insurance, Fountain has already reached a federal insurance assistance cap. Despite what his sister described as borderline mental deficiencies, he also won’t qualify for disability benefits.

“Medicaid has cut so many—you have to have kids now, or be disabled—and they don’t want to help people like Darryl,” said Angela Anderson, Fountain’s sister-in-law. “What do you do? You’re not really able to work; you have no insurance and no income. What do you do?”

This is the face of Detroit’s newly uninsured, a population who’s growing numbers are swelling the ranks of an uninsured community that has already far outstripped resources in a city that over the past 15 years has lost 60 percent of its primary care physician capacity, has no public hospital, and seemed on the brink of financial catastrophe as recently as 2008. Buffeted by sustained economic collapse and an unemployment rate hovering around 13 percent, a fundamental lack of adequate health care is simply another in a long list of societal inequities.

Left to their own devices, the lucky ones like Fountain may be able to make contact with clinics like Cabrini. Others, like Dwanna Myree, get creative. Myree, a 39 year-old mother of three was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1996. A former payroll officer, Myree lost her job and her insurance three years ago. With MS medication running close to $1000 a month, Myree found inspiration in an episode of the Montel Williams show. Williams, who also has MS, told viewers to reach out directly to drug companies. Myree made the call, and now receives shipments of medication for free through an organization called MSLifelines.com.

Always on the lookout for free promotions offered by area eye doctors and other specialists, Myree struggles to pay for essential neurologists visits out of pocket, juggling bills and her unemployment allowance, while continuing to advocate for her still-pending disability. Her benefits will run out in June of 2012.

“I have to fight, and it takes everything out of you,” she said. “I guess I just learned to maneuver just enough tot get by.”

In an attempt to alleviate some of the stresses felt by individuals such as Myree, the community is starting to fight back, too. Recognizing their city’s dire need for comprehensive primary care, physicians, federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and other community clinics have pieced together a safety net of sort in an effort to create medical homes for Detroit’s vulnerable underinsured and uninsured population.

Sister Mary Ellen Howard has been taking care of the uninsured in Detroit for decades, first as a nurse, then as a hospital adminstrator. Eight years ago Howard took the position of executive director at the Cabrini Clinic, where she is ideally placed to observe trends in the community. And what she sees now is worrying.

“I would say historically the people we’ve seen at Cabrini grew up in the welfare system,” Howard said. “They were born into poverty and they know how the welfare system works. The people we’re seeing the last couple of years do not fit that description. They did not grow up in poverty, but have recently lost their jobs, lost their homes, lost their insurance.”

For these people, seeking out advice and free medical care can be confusing, laborious, and embarrassing. “They don’t know where to go for help, they haven’t got a clue,” Howard said. “And in fact they take a lot more of our time and resources because they don’t want to ask for help, they don’t know how to get their utilities back on. They do not know how to work the system. When they go to the Department of Human Services and they tell them they’re not eligible for Medicaid, they believe them.”

Founded in 1950 by Most Holy Trinity Church, the Cabrini Clinic is the oldest free clinic in the country, said Howard, a 68-year-old retired nurse and passionate health care advocate who shows no sign of slowing down. The modest redbrick building sits on a shaded cul-de-sac, within sight of the newly neon-lit high rises of Woodward Avenue. But a revitalizing downtown does little to comfort the veteran clinician.

“Its pretty frightening,” she said. “I think this pattern is going to continue. There’s a real trend in our state and federal government to make of the victim a perpetrator: poor people are to blame; they’re causing the problem. “

Almost 40 million people living in the U.S. today do not have health insurance. In 2009, 164,000 of those uninsured lived in Detroit. Two years later, clinic directors like Howard put that number in the 200,000 range—around 22 percent of the city’s population. In New York City close to 14 percent of the population is uninsured. In Philadelphia it’s closer to 15 percent, and in Chicago 19.5 percent. The national average is 13 percent. The uninsured are three times as likely to go to the emergency room, and to be much sicker when they get there. They also are more likely to live with preventable diseases, and to develop depression.

Cabrini Clinic sees about 150 patients a week. Those who get appointments benefit from a dedicated volunteer staff that includes over one hundred doctors, nurses, pharmacists and social workers. It is a highly effective, total package system that typifies the concept of comprehensive care—the opposite of a one-time stopover in the local ER. But the high quality of the care also limits its volume.

Covenant Community Care's executive director Paul Propson stands in front of a dentist's chair in the mobile dental unit, which was parked in front of Crossroads, a local homeless shelter.Photo by Meredith Bennett-Smith

Further southwest, Covenant Community Care director Paul Propson prefers a different metaphor to describe some of the problems plaguing Detroit’s underserved population.

“It’s less of a safety net and more of a desert with a few oasis,” Propson said. “Hundreds of thousands of people are looking for these oasis. Many of them assume no one will help them. So they sit at home getting sicker and sicker until they have to go to the emergency room.”

Covenant, one of Detroit’s four FQHCs, has three clinics, two mobile trailers—one medical and one dental—and a school clinic. Unlike Cabrini, Propson also employs a staff that includes seven full-time doctors, three full-time dentists and three full-time nurses. Through a combination of very low patient contributions, grants and private donations, Covenant sees about 10,000 patients a year, 7,000 of them uninsured, and turns no one away.

“One myth we hear a lot is all poor people have Medicaid,” Propson said. “Some people have Medicaid. Our patients don’t generally qualify for it. They’re adults, and unless you’re disabled, you’re probably not going to get it.”

Chronic diseases like obesity, diabetes and hypertension are prevalent.

“These are high cost diseases they are not equipped to handle if they’re unemployed, or working a minimum wage job,” he said. “There’s no way they are not going to die from complications.”

Like other veterans of Detroit’s health care system, Propson is continually working to bring together resources and create partnerships and organizations in order to tighten the so-called safety net neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community.

On a recent rainy afternoon, Propson followed the center’s mobile dentistry unit to Crossroads homeless shelter, where Covenant donates free dental services.

“There is a lot of value in finding out what’s wrong,” Propson said. “We’ve identified cancers during check-ups.”

The units also serve an outreach purpose, identifying people outside of the medical system and attempting to find them a viable, sustainable base for primary care.

Carol Burnett is a vivacious mother of four who’s bright smile displays a missing bottom tooth. Smiling shyly, she reaches up to tug on a second upper tooth that wiggles obligingly. A second tooth on the bottom is also loose. If not for the mobile unit, she “would have let these go, yes I would have to tell you the truth. I’ll sit in that chair until they make me get out of it.”

Burnett lives in the area and frequents Crossroads for help with food and clothing. The shelter also spends $50,000 a year—the largest slice of its budget—on client prescriptions. In May Burnett badly fractured the bones in her leg and hip, requiring a trip to the emergency room and frustrating her search for work. Unemployed and uninsured, Burnett lives off of the $200 dollars a month she receives in subsidies for the two children still living at home, as well as whatever money her boyfriend, a racetrack horse groomer, can send home.

Burnett is the type of patient Propson hopes the mobile unit and shelter volunteers will be able to draw into the safety net. Wary of false promises, Burnett has never reached out to free clinics in her area, and views the emergency room as her only option for medical attention.

The use of ER’s as a substitute for preventative primary care creates a lose-lose situation, said Dr. Michael Kobernick, director of emergency services at St. John Providence, one of the city’s largest health systems. “All emergency departments see a lot of uncompensated care,” Kobernick said. This puts stresses on the hospital, as well as the patient—for whom the bill will eventually be due.

But the problem is not simply a financial one. Emergency room physicians are trained to think in a short-term capacity. It is their job to save lives, not ensure their patient’s quality of life for the next decade. Patients seen in ERs are getting “episodic, not primary care,” Kobernick said. “The problem is when they get only episodic care, they have to wait for something very bad to happen” before seeking treatment. For example patients with high blood pressure may wait for a stroke. “The rates of dangerous and or fatal side effects go way up,” he said.

Kobernick also volunteers his time with a group of doctors called Physicians Who Care, a group that works to shore up the holes in primary care of the uninsured.

Primary care resources have been hit especially hard in Detroit because of population loss. The number of practicing doctors is generally proportionate to the number of insured patients in a city. In Detroit, the insured population has declined, or held steady, while the number of uninsured patients continues to climb–increasing the need for volunteers like Kobernick to keep pace with the rising demands of the uninsured.

Propson offers a simple solution. “People need to be more passionate about caring for the uninsured then they are about making money,” he said. “We, as Detroitians, have the resources to see everyone. And we all need to give a little more.”

Across the street from Crossroads and the mobile dentistry unit, the bright blue banner of a private dentist strikes Propson as maddeningly ironic. “That’s the mystery and the tragedy of health care,” Propson said. “He feels he can’t help them, they feel they can’t go to his door.”

Back in the Cabrini Clinic’s cool emerald waiting room, the crowd has thinned as five o’clock melts into six, seven, eight o’clock. The volunteer staff, still cheerful after four hours on their feet call in the last prescriptions to the pharmacy team.

Veronica Green is one of the last to be seen. Petite, cheerful and missing her top teeth, Green is unemployed at 53, with five grown children and a weekly allowance of food stamps. Her Medicaid ran out years ago, although she’s not sure why. One day she went fill out her forms and they told her coverage had simply run out.

A long-time patient at Cabrini, Green feels safe here, and dutifully meets her monthly appointments for refills of Zantac—an acid reflux medication—and vitamins. The six pills a day “make me stronger, they make me want to eat. Otherwise I feel rundown,” she said.

Veronica Green, 53, waits for her medications at the Cabrini Clinic in southwest Detroit, a free health care provider. Unemployed and uninsured for over a decade, Green relies on food stamps to live. Photo by Meredith Bennett-Smith

It had started to rain. Fountain fussed over his elderly mother’s socks, making sure she was warm enough. In order for the safety net to ensure long term protection for patients like Fountain and Green, the system will need to include a coordinated , integrated system of care, Propson said, that will cut down on the inevitable waste of patchwork, incremental programs.Voices of Detroit Initiative (VODI) has been developing a virtual network along these lines, but so far have run into problems due to a lack of funding. “If the Affordable Care Act works, more people will get on Medicaid, and the insurance money will help Covenant expand,” Propson said. But “the fog is thick, and there are always going to be people who slip through the cracks, even if ACA works,” he added.

Like Green, Fountain feels safe at Cabrini. “They treat the patients good,” he said.
“Everybody likes it—you can tell from the atmosphere.”

Angela Anderson examined her bright-orange nail tips. If her city had been slowly deteriorating before, “now, it’s really bad.” Without Cabrini, her brother-in-law would have no way to pay for his meds, and no resources if his disease becomes suddenly aggressive.

“I’m here for support,” she said, watching her brother-in-law out of the corner of her eye. “This place, it’s a big help.”

Arab Americans in Dearborn from Pavement Pieces on Vimeo.

Writing still appears on the chalkboards at David Mackenzie High School. Photo by Dayna Clark

Pushing open a heavy side door, permanently propped open to allow easy access for intruders, urban explorer John gingerly stepped through tiny shards of glass that littered the now darkened hallways. The darkness, pierced with shafts of sunlight, broke through the gapping holes that once held windows. Bits of paper, wood splinters and broken lockers ripped from the walls completed the picture of what is now David Mackenzie High School.

John did not want to give his last name because this type or exploring, known as urban spelunking, is illegal and dangerous. But that does not stop John, a seasoned spelunker, and the many others who enjoy the thrill of stepping into the darkness and walking through Detroit’s once vibrant past.

Abandon buildings are a ubiquitous force that affects nearly every neighborhood in Detroit. Mayor David Bing has pledged to knock down 10,000 structures in his first term in an effort to downsize the enormous city down to a more manageable size.

But not every Detroiter sees these buildings as blights to be demolished.

Dan Austin, 30, works as a copy editor at the Detroit Free Press. Austin first became interested in urban exploration, particularly urban decay, when he started noticing an abandoned hotel on his daily commute to work. He started asking around to find out what the building once was and was amazed to find that no one knew anything about this impressive structure.

“Detroit tends to run from its history,” Austin said. “We seem to lack that historic pride that others have.”

The elusive building turned out to be the Statler hotel which Austin later discovered was the city’s first modern hotel. It was the first hotel in Detroit to have a bathroom in each bedroom and actual cold water that traveled through its pipes. The Statler was demolished in 2005 just in time for the Super Bowl XL, and 30 years after it had been abandoned.

“Blame it on the car culture,” Austin said. “Detroit has always been obsessed with the what’s shiny and new. But the whole does not improve unless you’re adding to it, not just reshuffling its parts.”

Austin’s book, “Lost Detroit,” published in 2010, chronicles the history of 12 of the city’s most historic buildings, showing in graphic detail the beauty that once was and the wasteland that now is.

“People like to categorize my work as ruin pornography, as capitalizing on what should be a source of embarrassment for our city, but I don’t see it that way,” Austin said. “Yes, we take photos of dilapidated buildings, but we also put the buildings in context giving people a history of what Detroit used to be. If there is a comparison to be made, I’d like to think that we are the Playboy of ruin porn, with the good articles, and not Hustler,” Austin said as he tried not to smile.

While the history may be important to some, for others it’s preserving the memory of what the buildings have become that some find most important.

John is a professional photographer but has taken to giving tours of these skeletal infrastructures. Mackenzie, once a school that housed 2,000 students, closed in 2007 with fewer than 1,100 students. Mackenzie High is just one of the many high schools that faced what has been called the worst enrollment crisis in the nation. The Detroit Free Press reported in 2010 that Detroit had lost more than 100,000 students since 1999.

Sy Ginsberg a Mackenzie graduate of 1962, remembered the once grand auditorium.

“Some of these new high schools have more all-purpose multi-functioning auditoriums, but we had a great theater with stadium seating and a stage. It was really quite nice. They don’t make those anymore.”

For now the school auditorium of 2011 remains intact, except for some minor water damage that has collected by the stage. Still, John fears destruction in the not too distant future.

A once grand auditorium, complete with stadium seating and stage now sits empty at David Mackenzie High School. Photo by Dayna Clark

“Scrappers will come and smash these seats to remove the copper finish around the edges,” John said. “You can tell how long a building has been vacant for by the amount of valuable equipment that remains.”

Scrappers are yet another group that sees opportunity amongst the ruins. John describes three tiers of scrappers that exist within the scrapping system. The first tier is usually made up of professionally licensed workers such as plumbers or carpenters.

“These scrappers come in first to get the good stuff,” John said, “usually stainless steel kitchen equipment, radiators, copper plumbing, anything with high street value.”

These scrappers often operate from 9 to 5 and work only with reputable scrap yards that insist on licensed workers. The second and third tier scrappers come in later peeling, pulling, and dragging anything they can get their hands on.

Despite his formidable size and massive beard, which John insisted protects him from scrappers and pretty girls, John prefers to avoid confrontation with police and scrappers alike.

As he crossed into what was once a science lab, now devoid of any actual equipment, John heard a noise outside and paused, mid-step to determine the origin of the sound. Three young girls with bright colored backpacks ran across the schoolyard, caught in the middle of a game of tag. John stayed quiet so as not to alarm the children.

“For them, [these buildings] just become part of their landscape,” John said.

In the past year alone 173 schools have closed, putting close to 40,000 children back into the school system, without a school.

“People think it’s easier to get rid of these buildings, some of which have been vacant for many years. People don’t see the potential here, all they see is blight,” John said. “They see an impossible task.”

Jordan Velazquez, 20, stands behind the front counter at La Carreta Market in Detroit's Mexicantown. Velazquez said more aggressive border patrol enforcement has led to a decrease in business at the store. Photo by Kathryn Kattalia

At La Carreta Market on Bagley Street, it’s not uncommon to see border patrol officials navigating their way through narrow aisles brimming with dried chilies, piñatas and imported Mexican candy.

“There have been times where I’ve had border patrol outside the store,” said Jordan Velazquez, 20, an employee at the Mexicantown market. “They’ve never grabbed anyone from here, but if people see border patrol outside or around here, they immediately get scared.”

For residents living in Detroit’s Mexicantown, stories of border patrol officers picking up illegal immigrants from stores and restaurants have become increasingly common—and businesses are starting to feel the impact.

Small storeowners, who are already struggling to keep up in a crippling economy, say they now face another challenge: they’re losing customers as more aggressive immigration law enforcement has scared many residents away from the neighborhood.

Employees at La Carreta Market on Bagley Street said more aggressive border patrol enforcement has led to a decline in business. Photo by Kathryn Kattalia

“People have a sense of fear like, I can walk out of my house today and maybe I might not be able to come back to my house tonight,” Velazquez said. “It has gotten worse.”

The Federation for American Immigrant Reform estimates there are nearly 200,000 illegal immigrants living in the state of Michigan. While experts say it is impossible to peg down the number of undocumented people in Detroit, the number of foreign-born residents has grown significantly in the last decade, from 137,769 in 2000 to 162,550 in 2008.

Over the last 10 years, more relaxed immigration policies have lured many undocumented Latinos to Mexicantown, a neighborhood that has been a regular magnet for immigrants since the 1950s.

But Angela Reyes, founder and executive director of the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation, said that’s all starting to change. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Michigan have become more zealous when it comes to sweeping the city for illegal immigrants, she said. Some people are moving to the suburbs where they feel safer. Others simply aren’t leaving their homes.

“It has been really oppressive to the point where they follow people to schools and churches, they’re waiting outside our organizations, raiding homes,” Reyes said. “It has had quite a big impact. Business owners notice because people are afraid of leaving their house.”

A bill proposed by state congressman Dave Agema to the Michigan House of Representatives in February would make it legal for law enforcement officers to demand documentation from anyone they approach for an offense or believe might be here illegally.

Agema said the bill, currently still in committee, would make it harder for illegal immigrants to stay in Michigan.

“Detroit and Ann Arbor have been a sanctuary in the state of Michigan which means if they get somebody that is illegal, they don’t turn them over to I.C.E.,” Agema said. “Basically they’re harboring criminals which is against the law and against the constitution.”

However, business owners say the increased law enforcement is having a negative effect when it comes to bringing in customers. Gloria Rosas, owner of Xochi’s Mexican Imports, said sales have dropped 50 percent since she first opened her colorful store on Bagley Street in the 1970s.

“Of course it’s the economy, but it’s also that people are leaving and are scared to come,” Rosas said. “You see people in churches and schools and supermarkets—they are scared of border patrol.”

On an overcast Saturday morning, Maribel Enriquez is one of the few people who can be seen out running errands on Bagley Street.

Enriquez, 26, who has lived in Southwest Detroit for most of her life, said she hasn’t just heard stories of people disappearing—she’s experienced it first-hand. Ten months ago, her stepfather was deported after being pulled over by police on Interstate 75.

“They’re deporting like crazy,” Enriquez said. “They’re getting people on the street.”

The result has had a paralyzing effect on everyone, she said.

“For a little while, I don’t think anyone went out anymore,” Enriquez said.

A spokesperson for the I.C.E Michigan office did not return phone calls for comment. However, officials have said that the push to crack down on illegal immigration in the state has focused on mostly on undocumented immigrants with criminal records.

In September, a nationwide crosscheck enforcement operation by ICE resulted in 58 arrests of undocumented people with felony convictions in Michigan, 18 from Detroit.

Velazquez said the tougher law enforcement has also made it harder for people without papers to find employment, and spending is coming to a standstill.

“If people don’t have that many job opportunities any more like they used to, they don’t come here and cash their checks,” Velazquez said. “They don’t go to any restaurants, they don’t go to stores to shop, they don’t go anywhere.”

And in a neighborhood that’s already struggling to stay afloat, even legal residents are on edge, Reyes said.

“You just never know where (border patrol officers) are going to be,” she said. “Many people that I know of who are second, third generation, have been stopped and interrogated. I carry my passport with me everywhere I go because of that.”

At TechTown, Wayne State University's 100,000 square foot research park and business incubator, Detroit is transforming from a single-industry economy to a dynamic haven for creativity. Photo by Nick DeSantis.

At the corner of Cass Avenue and Burroughs Street in midtown Detroit, two opposing symbols of explosive growth compete to catch a visitor’s eye.

On one side looms the American Beauty Electric Iron building, an industrial relic neglected for so long that leafy trees have burst through the roof. Across the street, an engine of more practical growth – economic, rather than botanical – stands shoulder to shoulder with its blighted neighbor.

The new building houses some of the booming entrepreneurial spirit that is transforming Detroit from a one-industry city into a haven of creative energy.

Inside Wayne State University’s TechTown – a 100,000 square foot technology park and business incubator – entrepreneurs from across southeast Michigan are finding ways to bring new jobs to a city that lost a quarter of its population in the last decade. As the economy soured, Detroit’s frozen investment climate made it difficult to attract businesses. But thanks to TechTown and other local innovators, a diverse range of companies is beginning to repair the tattered social fabric that drove jobs away.

Randal Charlton, TechTown’s executive director, knows firsthand the risk involved in trying to jump-start economic growth in a declining city. His company, Asterand, was TechTown’s first tenant in 2005. Today, Asterand is the world’s largest supplier of human tissue samples and is a publicly traded company on the London Stock Exchange.

Charlton said he picked Detroit because he could see the city was starved for investment.

“I knew that if I took the company to Boston, the only people who would care about me would be my landlord and the local Starbucks,” he said. “Because there are too many good companies walking up and down the street, so who cares? Even go to Ann Arbor – you set up a new company there – so what? It’s like a little Disney World all on its own. But you come here, and you start creating jobs, and people rush to help you.”

Since opening in 2004, TechTown has grown to house 250 companies and has helped thousands of other entrepreneurs realize their visions for a new Detroit. Sixty percent of TechTown’s business portfolio is women-owned, and 47% of the companies are run by people over the age of 45. Despite its name, TechTown doesn’t just provide assistance to biomedical companies and other high-tech businesses. Eighty-five percent of TechTown companies are what management calls “lifestyle companies,” which provide basic services for residents right in their neighborhood. They include printers, art magazine publishers and cafes.

“We don’t have the luxury that Silicon Valley has of just focusing on figuring out where the next Google is,” said Charlton. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s dry cleaning, or a corner deli store, snow removal service, or a taxi service for senior folks, we’ve got to support a broad range of entrepreneurial activity.”

TechTown’s programming attracts a wide variety of locals. The Shifting Gears initiative provides business training and mentorship opportunities for older Detroiters – many who are looking for second acts in their careers after being laid off from jobs in the auto industry.

“On one level, Detroit suffered by having a generation of great entrepreneurs in the 1910s, ‘20s and ‘30s who created so many jobs that the rest of us just needed to figure out who we were going to work for,” Charlton said.

Detroit’s main pillar of economic stability, which provided generations with stable jobs and good benefits, eventually became a liability when it disappeared and workers were unprepared to adapt their skills for different businesses. Shifting Gears trains late-career employees for new jobs with small businesses instead of large companies.

THRIVE, TechTown’s entrepreneurial coaching program, helps new ventures develop business plans and strategies to access funding – all for a nominal cost of $10 per month. Independent entrepreneurs can also use TechTown’s meeting spaces free of charge.

Jacob Raymond came to TechTown this year after founding Rep Your City, a local news website that recognizes and rates readers based on their participation in community events. Raymond, 27, grew up in Detroit and is trying to use his site to keep young people from fleeing the city at their first chance.

“I talk to kids in school, for example, middle school – I went to go talk to them for career day – and you have kids talking about, ‘the first thing I want to do is get out of here. There aren’t opportunities here.’”

TechTown is changing that dearth of opportunities, but businesses still face challenges that are unique to Detroit’s fragile recovery. Matt Clayson, director of the Detroit Creative Corridor Center, or DC3 – a business development group separate from TechTown that caters to Detroit’s creative professionals – said sustainable growth will come slowly in a city still plagued by quality-of-life problems that can chase away well-intentioned entrepreneurs.

“Detroit’s an easy place to come to with an idea,” he said. “It’s a hard place to execute that idea.”

An entrepreneur might come to Detroit with a plan to open a yoga studio and soon find their ambitions bumping up against the day-to-day challenges of operating in the city.

“When you open up your business, let’s say your storefront studio, and someone moves into a vacant house a block away and starts dealing drugs, you’re going to have to put the business on the back burner to deal with that drug dealing or else one of your clients is going to be mugged by a user,” said Clayson. “In Grand Rapids, where I grew up, you’re going to get a five-minute police response time for that. Here, it’s not going to happen.”

Clayson isn’t deterred by those potential setbacks, but he said some Detroiters view starry-eyed outsiders with skepticism. DC3’s inaugural Creative Ventures Acceleration Program supports 17 firms with mentoring and resources to turn early-stage creative businesses into the stable, job-producing companies the city needs.

Tunde Wey is the founder of Detroit Big F Deal, one of the companies participating in the DC3 Creative Ventures program. This year, he launched his crowd-funding website that features Detroit-based projects and rewards donors with gift certificates and other incentives from local businesses. By keeping his projects local and using fellow businesses to reward contributors, Wey is able to keep money flowing inside the community.

He said that unlike some other cities where he’s tried to start businesses, Detroit’s community of entrepreneurs always opens its doors to people with good ideas and gives them the encouragement they need to get their ideas off the ground.

“Detroit is the most accessible place you’ll ever go to,” said Wey. “People are willing to share their time with you.”

As enthusiastic as those entrepreneurs may be to rebuild Detroit, TechTown is not without its problems. Funding remains a challenge.

In 2007, TechTown management found itself in trouble when 35% of the building was completed and tenants had filled the incomplete space to capacity. The cost of running the space exceeded the building’s rental income – primarily because TechTown, as a nonprofit, was not charging its start-up businesses market-rate rents. Charlton said they don’t raise their rents because start-ups don’t always have the resources to pay high rents.

Without more space to take in new tenants, TechTown could not gather the funds necessary to complete construction. Charlton compared the situation to a motel trying to make money with only one third of the rooms containing beds.

Several large foundation grants eventually solidified TechTown’s footing, and now the main building is almost finished. And management has plans to expand the campus’ footprint – including the dilapidated American Beauty Electric Iron building across the street, which Wayne State owns.

Both Charlton and Clayson agree that for the city’s recovery to continue, local entrepreneurs must develop a diverse range of businesses that will foster sustainable growth and create viable residential communities. The energy in Detroit’s business incubators has given the business community cautious optimism for the future.

“Collectively, people have said, ‘look, we’ve got to get behind Detroit,’” said Charlton. “If Detroit starts recovering, the rest of the state will recover.”

Eva Reed, 42, attended class at Mercy Education Project on Oct. 13. Reed began the Pace Program in 2009 and will receive her GED in November. When Reed started the program she was reading at 4th grade level. The illiteracy rate in Detroit is 47%. Photo by Jessica Bell

Eva Reed dropped out of high school when she was in ninth grade. She was unmotivated, with teachers who seemed to not care about her success. Her sister had just been killed and her mother needed help raising her seven children. Nearly 30 years later Reed, 42, is attending Mercy Education Project’s Pace program taking classes to improve her reading and math skills.

“I never got a chance,” Reed said of her high school experience. “I was always trying to get help to the point where I was crying but I never got the help I needed.”

Mercy Education Project has been operating in Southwest Detroit for 19 years. They provide a variety of GED preparation classes to women and most students arrive reading at a fifth grade level or below. Reed knew something was wrong when her seven children started surpassing her educationally.

“It was my third oldest daughter, when she was in school and I couldn’t help her with her homework, that’s when I realized I needed help,” she said.

Reed is like 47 percent of Detroiters, who are considered functionally illiterate. While there are several organizations around the city working to bring this number down, the city is still in such financial straits that the education system has been deteriorating for several years. It was recently announced that the city has to close six branches of the Detroit Public Library.

Amy Amador, the executive director at Mercy Education Project, says the deterioration of the education system in Detroit is partially to blame for such a high illiteracy rate.

“Our schools have been in turmoil for years,” she said. “We have had a history of once kids get to high school, we’re just waiting for the ones who are going to drop out and focusing on the ones who stay in. There are a lot of efforts to make changes, but we aren’t there yet.”

Detroit had the their highest graduation rate since 2007 last year with 62 percent of high school students graduating within four years. But, that still leaves 38 percent of young Detroiters without the basic skills they need to find work. The system has faced large deficits and announced a budget cut of $230 million this summer.

Detroit Public Schools is not the only local department facing serious cuts. With the library being forced to close six of its 23 branches at the end of the month, residents have risen up to try and save them. They are writing letters to the Library Commission and picketing outside their local branches.

G. Peggy Noble, the Fenmore Block Club president responsible for protesting outside the city’s main library to save the Chase Branch, said she and her community understood the cultural and educational importance of keeping libraries open for the children.

“We really didn’t want the library to close, but then when you look into the eyes of the children here, we knew had to do something,” Noble said.

Donald Bailey III, 13, said he and his friends come to Chase everyday to do their homework in a quiet and peaceful environment and stay safe after school.

Donald Bailey III, 13, (right) said he and his friends use the Chase Branch of the Detroit Public Library everyday after school and on Saturdays. He doesn't have internet access at home and says he is able to concentrate on his homework better at the library than at home or school. Photo by Jessica Bell

“If [the library] wasn’t here we would probably just be out on the street robbing and doing crimes and stuff like that, that we shouldn’t,” he said. “But while we’re here this is stopping us from doing that.”

At the Chandler Park Branch, another on the brink of closure, Barbara Thomas holds meetings for her non-profit organization Believe in Detroit Just for Girls, a math and literacy enrichment program for girls ages five through ten. Thomas volunteers at a nearby school and brings the girls in her program to the library for three hours every Saturday to read and check out books.

“I was startled,” Thomas said of the closures. “The first thing I thought was what am I going to do with my girls.”

Illiteracy can be passed on from one generation to the next and certainly the threat of losing libraries hasn’t gone unnoticed as a serious issue by literacy advocates in the city.

“It’s unfortunate when libraries close because that’s quality of life,” Margaret Thorpe Williamson, the executive director of Pro-Literacy Detroit said. “They are repositories of information so it’s important for young people and all people to have access.”

While the Detroit Public Library declined comment, Detroit City Councilman James Tate said that the city has struggled to make headway on the illiteracy issue, one that he championed while campaigning in 2009, and that hearing about libraries closing is painful.

“It’s important that we do what we can to support our educational institutes and our cultural institutes and that includes our libraries,” Tate said.

Tate said the challenge Detroit is facing is changing the collective mentality on education. He said that because the city relied so heavily on the auto industry that kept them comfortable for decades Detroiters never put a heavy emphasis on higher education.

“The problem that we’ve had over time is that many of our families didn’t really emphasize higher education and that unfortunately led to not valuing education as a whole,” he said. “And that’s what we’re trying to fight.”

Susie Schechter is the executive director of Reading Works, a new collaborative between several literacy organizations including Mercy Education Project that is going to be used as an awareness and fundraising platform. She said the blame cannot be placed on Detroit’s current education system alone. Historically, Detroiters did not necessarily need basic educational skills to get by.

“People could come to Detroit and work on the line and make a great living and you could get away without having high literacy skills,” she said. “The auto industry is always going to be a huge part of who we are. But if we want to move into the direction we are poised to move into we need to have a workforce that has a higher skill set.”

Moving the city into a new direction is why Reading Works brought together nine of the longest running and successful literacy organizations in the city together. Their main objective is to bring everyone together to talk about challenges and brainstorm ways around them.

“Certainly, we’re facing up to the problem,” Schechter said. “We’re not denying that it exists anymore. We’re trying to handle the crisis.”

For people like Reed, the Mercy Education Project student, gaining the courage to admit she needed help and finally getting it has been a liberating experience. When she first came to Mercy in 2009, she read at a fourth grade level, now she has passed three out of five parts of her Graduation Equivalency Diploma exam.

Reed knows other people with similar reading and educational struggles as herself and encourages them to let go of their pride and look at her as an example.

“I never thought I would be where I’m at today,” Reed said. “I always looked down on myself and I never thought I could do anything, but once I got here and just the love, the peace, the people here, it’s a blessing.”

Two empty storefronts line West Vernor Highway in Detroit's Mexicantown neighborhood. Despite a growing Hispanic population, many small businesses are struggling to stay open. Photo by Kathryn Kattalia

A lot has changed along the stretch of West Vernor where Jorge De Luna’s father opened his family’s bakery almost 40 years ago.

His pumpkin empanadas have not.

The smell of cinnamon filled Luna’s Bakery II near Junction Street as De Luna, 54, emerged from the kitchen, carrying a tray filled with the pastries that have always been a best seller at the Mexicantown panaderia.

But these days, business is slow, the street outside empty. Few people have reason to come down this way anymore, De Luna said.

For some living in Detroit, Mexicantown has been seen as a glimmer of hope for a declining city. In the southwest corner of the city, the largely Hispanic neighborhood has grown at the same time Detroit’s population has plummeted—down nearly 200,000 in the last 10 years. Today, Hispanics make up nearly 7% of the city’s population, up from 5% in 2000.

And yet, the increase in people hasn’t translated into more business for mom and pop stores. Small business owners say they are fighting a crippling economy while competing against larger chain stores that have moved into the area to capitalize on the population boom.

“We’re struggling,” De Luna said. “A lot of small businesses are struggling. Even in Mexicantown.”

It’s a reality that seems to go against everything some economists have predicted. Lyke Thompson, director of the Center for Urban Studies at Wayne State University, said that more people should mean more spending.

With its growing population, Mexicantown should have an advantage, Thompson said.

“People keep flowing in there,” he said. “They make a lot of small investments, which add up and produce a community that’s not upper class, you don’t see wealth oozing out, but it’s a community that is functioning. Stores are doing well.”

But the mom and pop businesses that call Mexicantown home tell a different story.

The Southwest Detroit Business Association estimates that there are more than 170 small businesses operating along the 2.5 mile strip of West Vernon stretching through Mexicantown. Ten have opened in the past year. Five have closed.

Walking down West Vernor, it’s easy to see how the community might have once been a vibrant area. Painted store windows still advertise businesses that have since moved out, boarded up liquor stores and food markets wedged between quiet bakeries and discount shops.

Bigger retail stores and restaurants like CVS, Payless and McDonald’s are common. Other stores, like Sam’s Supermercado on West Vernor near Lansing Street, come from outside Detroit, pushing out local markets, small business owners say.

“Small businesses are disappearing,” said De Luna. “It’s too hard to keep up.”

Some small business owners point fingers at larger stores coming into Southwest Detroit to capitalize on a growing population.

Tammy Alfonso-Koehler, owner of Honey Bee Market Colmena on Bagley and 23rd Street, said a loyal customer base has helped her keep her business running, but it’s been difficult.

Tammy Alfaro-Koehler, owner of Honey Bee Market La Colmena, stands outside her business. Her grandfather opened the Hispanic market in 1956. Photo by Kathryn Kattalia

One of the first Hispanic markets to pop up in Detroit, the Honey Bee Market has been in Alfonso-Koehler’s family since 1956. Alfonso-Koehler, 43, said her family has had to deal with an influx of new grocery stores.

“It’s on the news Southwest Detroit is doing well, Mexicantown is doing well,” Alfonso-Koehler said. “We have an overflow of supermarkets all of the sudden, when there are other areas of the city that need supermarkets. All of a sudden we have 12.”

Alfonso-Koehler said she has had to pay closer attention to the kinds of products she buys for the store, straying away from more traditional products like dried chilies and tortillas to include more recognized food items.

In one aisle, packages of Chips Ahoy are stacked next to Roscas, cinnamon flavored cookies.

“We have to be more cautious of what we’re buying,” she said. “Because of marketing, you find a lot of our types of products at Meijers and Wal-Mart, because once they get on to something, they want to make money too.”

Other local businesses say they have had to find more creative ways to fight back.

At La Jalisciense Tortilla Factory, a neighborhood staple that has churned out traditional corn tortillas on Bagley Street since 1946, owner Myrna Abundis said customers used to flock to the family-owned factory to take home freshly made tortillas. Today, she said they’ve had to look for customers elsewhere.

The majority of La Jalisciense’s business comes from area restaurants and local food markets, Abundis said. But the factory has also started selling its products in bulk to larger stores, like Ryan’s Foods and Whole Foods in Ann Arbor.

They’ve also been hurt by increased competition.

Myrna Abundis, owner of La Jalisciense Tortilla Factory, explains how corn tortillas are made from scratch. The family-owned tortilla factory, which opened in 1946, has been a Mexicantown staple for decades. Photo by Kathryn Kattalia

“Before, there used to be just two tortilla factories here,” Abundis said. “Now, there are tortilla factories everywhere.”

She said outside businesses, like the Chicago-based manufacturing company El Milagro Tortillas, have become increasingly prominent in the area, catering to a growing demand for traditional products.

“There’s an opportunity here and they just grabbed it,” she said.

Alfonso-Koehler said the biggest challenge facing Mexicantown is holding on to a slipping identity outside businesses are trying to take advantage of.

Still, she said she remains optimistic.

“We have been part of the city when everyone thought it was hopeless,” she said. “People around us want the city to grow and change. It’s our citizens who have to take initiative and know what’s going on and be involved. I really do think it’s possible. I really do.”