Gov. Jennifer Granholm and family to build a Habitat for Humanity house in Detroit for another famiy

[Bozita]

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100611/COL10/6110356/1318/Granholms-family-builds-Detroit-home-for-another&template=fullarticle

POSTED: JUNE 11, 2010

Granholm's family builds Detroit home for another
BY ROCHELLE RILEY
FREE PRESS COLUMNIST


Gov. Jennifer Granholm is building a house in Detroit.

Not just a house, but a home -- for a family moving back to Detroit from out of state.

On Monday, the governor, first gentleman Dan Mulhern and members of the Mulhern/Granholm families are to begin work on a Habitat for Humanity house that they will build from the ground up.

The governor's project, which Granholm bills as a "working family reunion," launches a program called MI Family Builds Michigan -- details at www.michigan.gov/mifamily) and is being run by Habitat for Humanity.

The first family's construction site is being cosponsored by Henry Ford Health System.

"We want to suggest this as a way of having other families come back and take ownership of this great city and help to rebuild it," Granholm said in an exclusive interview, joined by her husband and his mother, Mary Mulhern, who also will participate in the effort.

"Beyond our family, we've got over 40 family members and volunteers and people who are coming to Michigan, coming back home from across the Michigan diaspora and from Illinois, New Jersey and Pennsylvania," she said.

Habitat for Humanity house launches program
The idea was simple: Mulhern had planned to go to New Orleans, where his 19-year-old daughter was doing a City Year internship. They would work together to rebuild a post-Hurricane Katrina Habitat for Humanity house.

"I was thinking about doing the same thing," he said. "But then I said, 'We've got to go to Detroit. Our mom's here. We grew up here. Our hearts are here. Our welfare is here. My wife is here. We should do a family build in Detroit.' "

And thus began a project that will find Granholm, Mulhern and 40 members of their families building a house in Detroit from the ground up -- as a family, for a new family.

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[aquart]

1. And so they should.

[NoNothing]

2. I'm a little surprised

They couldn't rehabilitate one of the 50,000 abandoned homes in Detroit?

[onpatrol98]

3. Feeling a bit guilty!

I was feeling a little guilty because I was thinking the exact same thing. Homes in Michigan, Ohio, were selling for like 5K and less. Why build one? I like Habitat for Humanity and all but...it would really help a lot of cities if new life could exist for some older homes.