John Carlisle: Utopia-seeking squatters struggle to create oasis in rough Detroit neighborhood

[mfcorey1]

They arrived in the neighborhood speaking of peace and love. They said they wanted to start a community for the spiritually minded and the artistically inclined, a place where people could have self-sufficient lives off the grid.

And they chose one of Detroit’s worst areas as their new home.

A couple years ago, residents of Goldengate Street were scratching their heads as people with strange names like Coconut and Mars started moving into the street’s abandoned homes, decorating them in wild colors and planting vegetable gardens in empty lots.

There’s about a dozen or so of them now, along with waves of couch surfers who pass through. They live in houses with no electricity or water or heat. They warm themselves with wood-burning stoves and wash themselves outside with buckets of water on warmer days. Their toilets are outhouses.

Each wound up here for different personal reasons but with a shared goal of creating a self-sustaining, eco-friendly community. They thought that Detroit, with so much abandonment, would be the perfect place to create it. And they figured if nobody wanted all these abandoned houses, they’d gladly take them over — with or without permission.

It was a culture clash from the beginning. Establishing a utopian community in a rough area proved harder than expected.

Some residents saw the newcomers as easy targets for robbery. Hangers-on showed up and took advantage of the group’s friendliness. Mostly, neighbors complained about suddenly having a circus on their street.

“That’s what I keep telling them — how is it that you’re part of this ‘peaceful community’ when the people who actually belong here, you’re actually screwing over to have your dream?” said Larry Lions, 43, who bought a home here five years ago.

But the newcomers say they came to improve the neighborhood — not take it over or cause a disruption. They give free bicycles to kids, mow lawns on empty lots and hand out vegetables from the garden.

http://www.freep.com/article/20131105/COL46/311050031/residents-squatters-Goldengate-Street-State-Fair-neighborhood

[MADem]

1. You don't "improve" an urban neighborhood with poor sanitation practices.

That's a recipe for cholera.

And no electricity, water or heat? That's a recipe for fires. That picture of the live chicken on the table next to the candle....really, what could go wrong?