wkmac
Well-Known Member
One of the surprising things about Detroit's descent toward insolvency — so dire that a state-appointed emergency manager recently arrived to take over — is that public services haven't collapsed as completely as some might have expected.
But that's not because city departments are functioning as usual. They're not. Instead, a growing collection of volunteers, some affluent, some just average guys riding their Toros, are trying to pick up some services that local government can't provide.
Detroit's Department of D.I.Y. is either the most heartwarming or humiliating reflection of its distress, but the volunteers insist it shows their refusal to give up on the place where they live.
"When the system fails us, you have to become the system," said Mitch Logan, a 48-year-old film producer who is part of a self-dubbed "Mower Gang" that mows neighborhood parks after they've finished their own yards.
For some Detroit services, call the D.I.Y. Dept.