A sad but well written piece about the problems residents of Detroit face on a daily basis appeared in the Detroit News today. When I was young, over 20 years ago, my parents left the City. Not because they no longer loved it, but because they wanted my and my sister’s childhood to resemble theirs and the neighborhood we lived in didn’t afford either my sister or me the opportunities they had. Whether it be education or just as importantly the ability to feel safe when we rode our bikes down the street, raising children in the City is complicated. On an aside, I have always admired Charlie LeDuff’s columns since he came back here from his pulitzer prize winning career, which included a stint with the New York Times.
Below is an excerpt from his article:
After 62 years, two children and a life made on the assembly line, Paulette Bouyer is leaving Detroit.You might remember her. She became something of a cause celebre when she appeared in these news pages in February after her home was robbed in broad daylight.
She became a reminder that there is a class of person in this city who lived through the good times, stuck out the tough times and waited for the good times to return, only to realize she was doing time locked behind the bars of her own home.
So now, Bouyer is walking away from the mortgage on her home on Greenview Street on the city’s west side. Like a million people before her, Bouyer has decided to cast her lot in the leafy suburbs of Oakland County. She takes with her a box of photographs, her living room set, her Bible and her gun.
“I’m sad,” she said behind rose-colored lenses. “I always had hope for this place. It was my life.”