Former Detroiter returns to rehab her childhood home

DETROIT (FOX 2) - Ty and Kameka Grady buy home to rehab, but usually not like this. 

Kameka left Detroit when she was 12 in 1989. Now she's back home, with her husband, on a new endeavor that's helping change the community. She returned to Detroit to restore her roots, but little did she know it'd start with the transformation of her childhood home. 

"We had no idea that the house was available. I didn't even know that the house was vacant and I just happened to be scrolling and locate the house, which is ironic because typically my husband does that. If he had been the one doing that, he wouldn't have known ... he would've passed right over it," Kameka said. 

The couple decided when they came back to the city that they would leave their mark, and this project on Kentucky Street will certainly be a labor of love. 

"I learned to ride a bike; I fell in the driveway; I have scars to prove it," she added. "I remember just laying in the bed with my sister and singing songs, playing name that tune when we were supposed to be asleep."

She showed us around the home, like the area where she took violin lessons and where her Christmas presents used to be hidden. 

"This is the closet where my parents hid the Christmas gifts when we were little. And, what I remember, was this closet was huge and there were tons of gifts in there. But, look at it now; the closet is tiny."

Things always look different to adult eyes, don't they?

The pair bought the property from the Detroit Landbank Authority and are slowly transforming it into something beautiful again, like the memories of this place. 

"The renaissance is about the neighborhoods and there's a strong push to revitalize the neighborhood," Kameka said. 

The house sat vacant for more than a decade. Kameka is amazed by how many people are still in the neighborhodd 30 years later, including a 98-year-old neighbor she knew from her childhood.